


The Colours of Our Banners

by Metallic_Sweet



Series: Wear Your Colours [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Classic Mode Mechanics (Fire Emblem), Courtly Love, Cultural Differences, F/F, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Other, Past Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg, Past Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra, Power Dynamics, Self-Worth Issues, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:59:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21525097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: The coronation of Dimitri King approaches along with the consequences of war.Meanwhile, Claude and Dimitri are trying to get married.
Relationships: Dedue Molinaro/My Unit | Byleth, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Ferdinand von Aegir/Lorenz Hellman Gloucester
Series: Wear Your Colours [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1527893
Comments: 117
Kudos: 320





	1. Chapter 1

**i.**

Autumn is frigid in Fhirdiad. 

In the early morning before Dedue comes to help him dress, Dimitri opens his eastern window. In the soft light of the early morning, he leans out in his nightshirt. Feels his skin become goose flesh. The coolness sends a shock through his joints. His ruined eye. Edelgard’s dagger wound. As it grows ever closer to winter, he knows the deep cold will ache in his lungs. 

The shock is bright and chases away the ghost of the night. 

He missed this in Almyra. He missed the cold, too, in Garreg Mach. Despite the higher elevation, snowfall is uncommon in the mountains around the monastery. The weather there is temperate and nearly always mild, so much so that Dimitri had found it faintly unnerving. The warmer and humid atmosphere of Almyra was, at least, less still.

 _You ran away,_ Father hisses. 

Dimitri blinks. 

The light is thin. Clouds in the northwest are heavy and dark, signalling a storm. Dimitri straightens and steps back from the window. He is suddenly too aware that if anyone down in the courtyard looked up, they would be able to see him, eye uncovered and dressed in only his nightclothes. 

He wonders, should it become known that he is living in the consort quarters, if tongues would wag. He wonders, with no less unease, if there would be too much understanding over unkind gossip. Everyone knows what Cordelia did. Of course, they may say, Dimitri King is hesitant to sleep in the same bedroom that witch slept. Who knows, after all, what curses she could have set. 

There are no curses in the royal chambers. Dimitri has already investigated that. 

There is a knocking. 

Twice. Once. Two beats pause. Again. 

Dimitri forces himself to stand from his crouch. Turn his head towards the inner door. 

“Dedue,” he says, “good morning.” 

The door opens. Dedue eyes him, already dressed for the training grounds and bearing the morning basin, pitcher, and fresh linen. Dimitri does not attempt to hide the lingering unevenness in his bearing. He crosses the room and takes the basin and pitcher. 

“Good morning, Your Highness,” Dedue says, glancing around the room as Dimitri carries the basin over to the wash stand. “Are you enjoying the fresh air?” 

Dimitri sets the basin down. Pours the water. It is very hot, nearly boiling. Dedue crosses the room to set most of the linens on the stand. 

_Selfish child,_ Stepmother whispers. 

“There is a storm in the northwest,” Dimitri says as Dedue soaks a cloth in the water. 

“I did see,” Dedue murmurs before taking Dimitri’s chin. “You have sleep crusting your eye. Let me clean it.” 

“Ah,” Dimitri says and holds still. 

The motions they go through are familiar. Dedue checks and begins cleans Dimitri’s bad eye. The socket healed poorly due to infection at sea, and his lid does not always fully close. It is difficult for Dimitri to fully clean it himself in the dim indoor lighting of the castle. 

Dedue frowns. Dimitri blinks. Dedue shifts his hand with the linen. There’s a faint yellow stain on the cloth. 

“Ah,” Dimitri says. 

“It is not inflamed,” Dedue says. “Mercedes will be available after her infirmary rounds.” 

Dimitri nods as Dedue lobs the cloth into the dirty laundry pile next to the dressing table. They move to the wash stand. Dedue uncovers and holds up the mirror as Dimitri unfolds his shaving razor. He is not as blessed as his father in facial hair, but Dimitri thinks this is probably for the best. One less issue for him to consider in making himself presentable. 

“How is my schedule?” Dimitri asks after finishing his upper lip. 

“First item is still Gustave on interior council regarding coronation rights,” Dedue says, with a slightly wry twitch of his lip as Dimitri sighs through his nose. “Felix has agreed to sit in on the meeting as well. He will likely ask you to spar with him once it goes overlong.” 

Dimitri hums as he shaves his chin. He rinses the blade in the water. Wipes it, perhaps a little too roughly. Too hasty. 

In Almyra, Dimitri and Dedue could be ready for the day in less than ten minutes. They even had time some mornings to bathe and take a good breakfast with proper tea. It was not that they were lazy. Rather, they rarely felt rushed. 

“Mercedes will have to come in during the meeting,” he says, leaning slightly forward to check if he needs to shave anywhere else; he doesn’t. “I will take lunch with Lucia if Felix cannot successfully extract me.” 

Dedue nods. He sets the mirror down and covers it. Dimitri crosses over to the wardrobe, starting to fully unlace his sleeping shirt. He pulls it over his head and throws it over the top of the dressing screen. He listens to Dedue moving around to pull out appropriate clothing for interior council.

“What about your day?” Dimitri asks as he steps behind the screen to change his small clothes.

“After the meeting, an afternoon review of the greenhouses and our grain stores,” Dedue says, a note of enthusiasm in his voice. “We will have a very meager winter still, but the pegasus fertiliser has been doing great work.” 

“That is wonderful to know,” Dimitri says, coming back out and pulling his chemise over his head. “Oh.” 

Dedue smiles, holding out the white hose. Dimitri sighs and sets about pulling them on. He can see out of the corner of his good eye that Dedue has pulled out upper breeches. Doublet. High collar. They haven’t even started on Dimitri’s hair. Claude’s courting chain is still clasped around Dimitri’s neck for sleep. 

It is petty, but a part of Dimitri misses Almyra if only because everyone was so much less fussy. He was not left alone, but he was allowed to go at his own pace. Dedue kept him presentable, but his methods of fussing over Dimitri are unobtrusive. He respects Dimitri’s feelings. Prioritises them, even when it is against court convention. 

But court convention is important. Essential. Especially with his ascension during the war and his upcoming coronation, he must be king first and Dimitri second. The two years spent in Almyra and the third conducting subterfuge in the ruins of Garreg Mach may too easily be twisted to make him appear unfit to rule. His ghosts are quick to remind him of this. 

The ghosts fill the edges of his thoughts. They are more numerous now but no less cruel than they have ever been. Unlike before, Dimitri cannot run out to the training yard to beat his body into exhaustion at will. There is no room for his weakness of responding aloud as he could sometimes indulge in Almyra or the ruined church. He is King and he must pay attention to his schedule even when his parents shriek in his ears, trying their best to break his composure. In the Fhirdiad court with its vicious attachment to chivalric pomp and circumstance:

Dimitri suffers. 

**ii.**

Dimitri’s interior council is currently comprised of Gustave, Dedue, Felix, and Margrave Gautier. Felix has officially assumed his title as Duke Fraldarius as of two weeks prior upon the refitting of his signet ring. Gustave has resumed his standing as Baron Dominic to help reorder the Kingdom, although Dimitri is aware he and Annette have not made amends. The Margrave Gautier accept the invitation to the interior council via messenger but, when called upon, sends Sylvain instead. Dimitri suspects this is due not to the Margrave’s supposed hardship to travel but because Dedue has been named to interior council. 

“What did he expect?” Claude asked when Dimitri mumbled all of this into his chest as they lay together the night to the victory celebration in Fhirdiad. “Sylvain did all the work during the war anyways.”

“Dedue does not have a Crest nor does he own property,” Dimitri murmured, listening to Claude’s heartbeat against his right ear. “So I may not create him title. The Margrave is likely insulted.” 

“Dima,” Claude sighed, his fingers threading through Dimitri’s hair, “you don’t need to be polite with me. If that old ass is insulted, it’s because Dedue is of Duscar.” 

“I will find a way to make him to duel me,” Dimitri said which earned him a shocked little chirp of a laugh that gave away to Claude chuckling and pulling his hair.

“Come, Dima,” Claude teased when he jerked his head up to find Claude grinning mischievously. “Show me that naughty side some more.” 

_I am serious,_ Dimitri thought but he never had been able to deny Claude. 

Interior council this morning is Gustave, Dedue, and Felix. Sylvain is back in Gautier territory overseeing the harvest and likely cavorting around in the town as much as he can between work. Gustave is worried that Sylvain may end up siring bastards, which Dimitri wishes he didn’t know was an actual concern. He isn’t interested in getting into the weeds with Gustave regarding how, despite his outward devotion to being a rake, Sylvain is more likely to be found abed with Felix than anyone else. 

“As the life of Saint Cethleann implies,” Gustave says in a slightly lighter tone which means Dimitri should tune back in, “the coronation is Kingship not only in the eyes of the Goddess but in reflection of the making and breaking of the world.” 

Dimitri blinks. 

Across the table, Felix has a slightly stricken expression and isn’t fidgeting. Dedue at Dimitri’s right is equally still, although Dimitri cannot see what expression he wears. Gustave has his hands folded on the tabletop in prayer and due to the subject of the discussion. 

Maybe Dimitri should have listened a bit closer. 

Luckily, Gustave is studying his folded hands. He lifts his gaze to Dimitri’s and there is a faint approval in his eyes to find Dimitri paying attention. He hadn’t noticed it is only just now. 

“Your father’s coronation took place during the Red Wolf Moon as well,” he says with a note of nostalgic fondness. “It did not come on the heels of a war, but I am hopeful we will have the divine grace of the Goddess for we have been so actively doing Her work.” 

“Ah,” Dimitri says, thankfully registering the cue to move the conversation towards practical specifics. “Yes, we do hope.”

“Whatever, boar,” Felix grumbles without any heat. “Can we go over security details so Claude doesn’t have to chuck Ferdinand at us last minute for once? If I have to hear one more complaint out of Lorenz, I’ll throw myself off the Eastern watchtower.”

“Of course,” Dimitri says, looking down and shuffling a few of his reports. “Although I do not think we will ever avoid complaints from Lorenz, especially once he is Duke Gloucester, so please do not throw yourself off the watchtower.” 

Felix sighs explosively. Dedue breathes out, a hidden laugh. Gustave, when Dimitri looks up with the correct report atop his pile, looks faintly amused. This is a relief. Dimitri hopes he will not be caught out on his inability to concentrate on theology for a while yet. 

The security reports are sombering. Much of the castle and major structures in Fhirdiad are in disrepair. The School of Mages in particular is a burnt out, rotting shell that blights the eastern landscape. No one is willing to spend more than a couple hours there. The superstitious worry about ghosts and possession, and the skeptics worry about residual magic and physical danger. Dimitri has not been allowed to go there for all of these reasons. 

There is also the simple issue of staffing shortages. The Faerghus military forces were gutted at the beginning of the war, and over a quarter of the ranks are filled with Almyran troops. None of the House Blaiddyd staff who served Cordelia have been kept on, and the number of those who were able to flee is under fifty. Most lower staff who survived the war were sheltered by House Fraldarius, who cannot spare them since Rodrigue lent all the House’s skilled workers to the war effort. Other loyal skilled workers had found use in Houses Gautier and Galatea, although those in Galatea had suffered further losses due to two rounds of summer plague. 

“I will not call them back,” Dimitri says before Gustave can suggest it. “I have great trust for the Almyran troops we have on hand, and when we count them, we will have enough to maintain security even if we have a crowd in our upper expectations.” 

“Goddess keep us,” Gustave says gravely.

Dimitri is spared needing to find a response to this by Mercedes letting herself in through the door to the main hall. She smiles, a serene expression of someone used to barging into important and official conversations with much more pressing matters. 

“Excuse me, Dimitri,” she says not pausing in her progress towards Dimitri, “Dedue let me know your eye is infected?” 

“It may be,” Dimitri says, standing slightly to adjust his chair to turn and give her access. “Thank you for coming.”

“You are welcome,” Mercedes says, reaching out and shifting his eyepatch out of the way. “Feel free to talk around me.” 

“With the Almyran troops on security detail,” Gustave says, not hesitating to take the opening, “it would send a clear message that we are dependent upon their continued involvement.” 

“It would not be a lie,” Dedue says as Mercedes leans into Dimitri’s face to inspect him. “The reality is that we are limited, and we cannot pull skilled hands from where they are desperately needed.” 

“We must ensure,” Gustave argues as Mercedes stands up straight and opens the pouch at her hip, “that the Kingdom have a strong and stable presence after years of treachery and violence.” 

“And Dimitri showing trust for those who served alongside us is not a show of strength and commitment to stability?” Felix asks as Mercedes uncorks an Antitoxin vial in an unusual hue. 

“Almyra is a traditional enemy of Fódlan,” Gustave says with an edge to his tone. “We well know the valour of our allies, but the common people are not always as quick to warm.” 

“The common people,” Dimitri says as he accepts the Antitoxin vial with great care, “understand that the Almyran riders are our allies and split blood to water our soil.” 

He drinks. His eye smarts immediately, causing him to curse and reflexively break the vial between his fingers. The delicate glass thankfully does not cut anything; his gauntlets and clothes save him from that indignity. He stands and brushes himself off with his right hand, left groping for his handkerchief to press over his watering eyes. 

“You should be right as rain now,” Mercedes says as Dimitri clears his eyes. “You should spend more time with the eyepatch off. The eye needs more fresh air.” 

Dimitri doesn’t say anything. He lowers his handkerchief. Blinks. 

“Are you self-conscious, boar,” Felix asks, more than a little amused. 

“Felix,” Dedue says, faintly warning.

“I am quite sure,” Gustave says as Dimitri inclines his head as Mercedes waves to signal she is leaving, “no one would be frightened.” 

_It frightens me,_ Dimitri wants to point out as he kicks the glass fragments to the side to sweep up later.

“It is a battle wound,” Gustave says, very gravely. “It reflects your honour.” 

Dimitri is glad that Mercedes closes the door a bit heavily, drawing everyone’s attention out of habit. Gustave does not see whatever expression passes over his face. By the time, attention returns to the table, Felix is already standing up. 

“This is enough grimness to think about before exercise and lunch,” he grosses, flipping over his notes with more force than necessary. “Dimitri, I want to fight a lancer today. Are you up to it?” 

He has probably smudged the last of his notes. Felix prefers slightly thicker ink than most. Dimitri drags his gaze away from the papers to meet Felix’s scowl. He nods, hand drifting up to adjust his eye covering. 

“Yes, let us adjourn,” he says before remembering Mercedes recommendation; he stands with his fingers awkwardly half under the patch and palm obscuring his eye. “The training hall?”

“Where else, the scullery?” Felix snarks, irritated. “I’ll met you there. I just need to check if any messages have come.” 

“Of course,” Dimitri says, slipping the patch back of his eye and pulling a stray hair pulling on it. 

Felix huffs, turns, and let himself out. Dimitri sets about reordering his reports and checking the last of his notes, which are about as useful as they ever are. Next to him, Dedue is already rolling his parchments up. He probably didn’t take any notes during Gustave’s theology speel, which is likely the real reason for Felix’s irritation. Since both Dimitri and Dedue tuned out, he had to pay attention. 

Gustave makes an audible sigh. 

Dimitri look up. Gustave is also cleaning up his papers. He does not look upset, though. He has a surprising little smile on his lips as he meets Dimitri’s gaze. 

“This really takes me back,” he says as Dimitri rolls his papers. “You still take after your father, of course, but in administration, you have become very much like the former Duke Fraldarius.”

“Ah,” Dimitri says because his gut feels like it has a sudden hole in it. 

“Lambert King was always rushing to get to the training hall, just like our current Duke Fraldarius,” Gustave muses as they all make for the door. “I feel as if they look down upon us and smile to see this reversed.” 

“Ah,” Dimitri says, glad for his armful of reports and notes to have something to grip. 

“I am certain of that,” Dedue says, very warmly as Gustave opens the door.

“Go on,” Gustave says, still smiling. “I will help clean up.” 

“Thank you, Gustave,” Dimitri says as he and Dedue step into the hall. 

They walk back to Dimitri’s quarters. Dedue doesn’t try to make Dimitri talk about all of that, which is excellent because Dimitri isn’t sure if he wants to scream, cry, or punch a fist through the nearest wall. It is fortuitous he will spar with Felix. They don’t have to hold back together, even in fisticuffs. 

“Will you join us?” Dimitri asks as Dedue reaches the branch in the hall for his own rooms. 

Dedue shakes his head, smiling still at the invitation. “I am going to have an early lunch and then head to the greenhouses. If I have time, I may write Byleth.”

This does bring Dimitri to hear. Dedue and Byleth have become very sweet towards each other since Byleth reappeared in Garreg Mach a year and a half ago. Dimitri’s feels himself smiling back with ease.

“I do hope you get the time,” he says, not bothering to hide his happiness. “Let me know how the professor is?” 

“I will,” Dedue responds with a short, pleased bow. 

Dimitri, once he is alone in his bedroom, rushes through changing into training clothes. He takes a short moment to undo his eye covering and slip the ties from under his braids and Claude’s chain. He is glad, not for the first time and certainly not the last, that this room and adjourning reception room have no mounted mirrors. He had chosen these quarters specifically for that reason. 

He arrives in the training hall without any interruptions. Felix is not there yet, presumably held up with messengers. This suits Dimitri well as it gives him a bit of time to stretch and warm up, getting the faint stiffness out of his knees and hips. He jogs around the hall’s perimeter, rolling his shoulders before doing a few flips. The feeling of his blood rushing helps to clear his mind. Refill the hole in his gut as he grabs a training javelin from the rack. 

The training hall’s gates open. 

Dimitri turns as Felix kicks the door closed.

“Congratulations on your upcoming marriage,” Felix says without preamble as he joins Dimitri at the training weapon rack.

Dimitri’s javelin snaps in half. The pieces slip his hand and plant in the ground at his feet. He stares at them for a long moment before looking at Felix. Felix, pulling a training sword in his right hand and holding out an open scroll in his left, simply stares at him.

“What,” Dimitri says.

“Read it yourself, boar,” Felix says, holding out the scroll.

It is due less to recovering from shock and more from years of habit that Dimitri reaches out without pause. Takes the scroll. The seal is Ferdinand’s in Gloucester wax. Felix took care not to break the seal’s image when he unsealed the scroll. During the war, messengers and unopened communications were not allowed near to Dimitri for fear of both attack and poison. Dedue and, after they returned to Garreg Mach, Felix opened all messages before sorting them for Dimitri. Ferdinand’s letters never appeared through the same channels, and he only used his seal and Gloucester wax on the most urgent information. Due to this, it had taken Dimitri an embarrassing amount of time to realise that the Alliance’s spymaster and Ferdinand were in fact one in the same. 

Before the war, he would not have taken Ferdinand for the spymaster sort. But that was before, when things were very different.

“What is –” Dimitri starts before he reads:

_I received a dragonhide dagger_

Dimitri only realises his mouth is open after he rereads the sentence three times. He tears his eyes from the parchment. Felix is watching him, expression as serious as it was when they marched on Enbarr. When he accepted his father’s body. When they stood and watched Edelgard besiege Garreg Mach. 

“Go,” he says, and Dimitri is already rolling the scroll back up, moving towards the doors that lead out to the stables.

“Thank you, Felix,” Dimitri says, his voice distant to his own ears.

“Don’t forget your spear, boar!” Felix yells after him as he breaks into a run. 

“Yes,” Dimitri screams back as he throws open the doors and meets the cool air. “Thank you so much!”

He runs.


	2. Chapter 2

**iii.**

In the before:

Dimitri grew up listening to the high tales. The heroics of Loog, Kyphon, and Pan. The trials against the great beasts. The triumphant horns and cheers of the people. He sat at his father’s feet, listening to his deep, warm voice recount the high tales. Often, Felix would sit next to him, arms tight around Dimitri’s waist as Lambert recounted the most harrowing trials. 

These were Lambert’s favourite parts to tell, and, if Rodrigue was there, they would tell of the exploits together, mimicking the sword and lance play against the imagined foe. Felix cried when the foe was extra frightening, and he would hide his face against Dimitri’s back. Dimitri sometimes was scared, too, but he understood that he needed to act as if he wasn’t else Felix would cry even more and their fathers would stop the story. 

Sometimes, Sylvain and Ingrid would join them. When Ingrid joined, Glenn would be allowed to sit beside her, and he held her hand during those frightening parts. Sylvain liked to lie on his stomach and kick his feet idly in the air, only stilling when Pan and Kyphon spoke of love and marriage. Dimitri loved the times they were all able to sit together like this, and even Patricia would join in those instances. She smiled at them as she embroidered, quiet and pleased to be around so many children.

These are the only memories that Dimitri has of his life prior to the Tragedy that aren’t damaged. He is still able to remember his father’s voice in them, and he can see him, Patricia, and Glenn smiling. He doesn’t remember what colours Patricia’s eyes were or what shape Glenn’s ears were, but these details are easy to ignore. He remembers best the high tales, his Father’s unique lancing stance, and Felix’s grip around his waist.

Father’s head was rend from his neck in that stance. Felix has not held Dimitri like that except to throw him down and save his life.

The high tales are, therefore, precious to him. He does not speak of them nor request them as dinner entertainment. It gives the impression that he does not care for the tales as Felix and Sylvain hate them. Ashe and Ingrid still love to speak of them, and they entertained each other by recounting the tales in the long two years they spent biding time in Garreg Mach’s ruins. Dimitri never joined them, although he did listen if they were in earshot and he hidden. Their style is different with Ingrid as Kyphon and Ashe as Pan. The role of Loog is narrated and kept infilled.

It is for the best. Dimitri knows if his love for high tales became known they would somehow rope him into playing Loog. Dedue is aware, of course, but that is only natural. They speak softly on the themes of honour and love when they are alone, and very often when they are a bit drunk.

“My sister was to marry a textile merchant,” Dedue told him one rare cool Almyran afternoon as they drank sweet wine on Marie, Claude’s lady mother, terrace. “As his promise, he bought her an illustrated book of Loog and the Grim Dragon. That is how I know of House Blaiddyd’s founding.”

“That is a fine gift,” Dimitri breathed as Marie hummed in agreement.

“My sister was not much for books,” Dedue confessed with a fond smile, “but I was so taken with it. I begged her often to let me look at the pictures. It had no gilding or anything extravagant, but the colours were rich and images fantastic.”

“When you are wed,” Marie said as her lady in waiting brought their late lunch, “I will remember this in my gift.”

Dimitri had a good laugh in Dedue’s sputtering expense. He had been aware by then, at nearly a full year in Almyra, that Dedue was fond of Byleth. In their short academy days, Dimitri had also grown warm towards Byleth, who had first seemed so empty of personality. By the time he had changed his opinion of the professor, he had become very fond of Claude, even though he and his room always smelled of his chaotic concoctions and experiments. Dedue’s fondness of Byleth was impossible for Dimitri to miss because it was like watching himself from the outside. 

Thinking on love in the protective sanctuary of Marie’s rooms, Dimitri could laugh. The ghosts were quiet there, and he could think. He watched Dedue flush as both Marie and her lady tried to tease Byleth’s name from him, and he could smile. 

_This,_ he thought, clear and sure, _is better than the high tales._

The flight from Fhirdiad to Gloucester takes the majority crest of the sun over the sky. By the time he is within sights of the House Gloucester watchtowers, Dimitri is aware that he has not had anything to eat since early morning. He is windswept and unhooded, and Lucia has no armour nor saddle. He punches his Crest into the sky to announce himself because he forgot to bring a banner. 

There is a short pause before the northern watchtower responds. A pillar of Thoron erupts off, forming the Crest of Cichol. Ferdinand must have been waiting. Dimitri kicks his heels against Lucia’s flanks, speeding her forward. She roars, wings twisting and beating against the thin wind with enthusiasm. She is always fed a cow’s head in Gloucester, so she is motivated. 

Dimitri sometimes wishes that everyone could be as food motivated as Lucia. Perhaps then he would not have to listen to as much theology. 

Ferdinand meets Dimitri in the northern courtyard. He looks, even from a distance, extremely tired. He is dressed very presentably, but that is standard for Ferdinand. He looks worse than when they took Enbarr and certainly worse than he did at the feast for the trade treaty with Almyra only a week before. Dimitri would hazard that Ferdinand may not have slept since that evening. 

Even so, he brightens as Dimitri lands safely and immediately snaps to attention. His fist over his heart with an audible thump as he bows. 

“Hail Dimitri King!” he announces as Dimitri dismounts Lucia. 

“No, no need for that,” Dimitri mumbles as he accepts Ferdinand’s bow. “Thank you for your message. I came as quickly as –”

“Ferdinand!” Lorenz’s voice echoes through the courtyard, although he is nowhere to be seen yet. “Why aren’t you wearing a coat?” 

To Ferdinand’s credit, he is not derailed any further than sighing and rolling his eyes as he straightens. Up close, Dimitri’s estimation of Ferdinand’s sleep is probably closer to the mark than he had hoped. 

“I expect nothing less from you on a matter of urgency,” Ferdinand says, mild and serious at the same time. 

Dimitri nods, spotting out the side of his eye Lorenz approaching at a clip from the opening main northern doors. He wonders suddenly how Ferdinand got from the top of the watchtower to the courtyard without opening the doors. 

“Claude should be arriving within a couple of hours,” Ferdinand continues, gaze registering Dimitri’s slight shift in attention but not otherwise reacting. “I do wish he would keep a proper retainer so he would be able to come and go on his own time.” 

Dimitri nods because he has thought much the same. “Claude is…” He pauses to hand Lucia over to the stablemaster, who approached from his right side with an enticing platter of a bull’s head. “He does not like to appear detached.” 

“Yes,” Ferdinand agrees, looking possibly more exhausted. 

“Ferdinand, why must you be like this,” Lorenz says as he comes upon them and throws a mage’s protective shawl over Ferdinand’s shoulders; he only then blinks at Dimitri, clearly surprised to see him standing there. “Oh, dear! Forgive me! Good evening, Dimitri King. Are you just arrived?” 

“Good evening, Lorenz,” Dimitri says, struggling slightly to keep up. “Yes.” 

“I have no use for this, Lorenz,” Ferdinand sighs, pulling the shawl off as he speaks; Dimitri feels strongly that he has walked into an ongoing spat of some sort. “My apologies, Dimitri. Perhaps we should go inside.”

“Yes, we should,” Lorenz says, scowling at the shawl in Ferdinand’s hands before visibly shaking himself and turning his attention to Dimitri. “You have had a long flight. Are you cold? Would you like something to eat now or to clean up?” 

“Ah,” Dimitri says, feeling slightly panicked. 

“Come, we will have tea,” Lorenz says, already turning with an imperious click of his boots on the flagstones. “I will have something brought to my quarters. Drink and eat and then rest. It is nearly dinnertime after all.” 

He starts off back towards the main doors. Dimitri realises that his mouth is slightly open. He shuts it. Turns to look at Ferdinand, who looks somewhere between extremely annoyed and exhaustedly resigned. 

“I am sorry,” he says, sounding exactly as he looks. 

_You stain these people,_ Glenn whispers. 

Dimitri blinks. 

“I am hungry,” he says because it is true, “so there is no need to apologise.” 

Ferdinand glances at him. He seems to want to say something but likely thinks it unkind or ungallant and so holds his tongue. He shakes himself, a familiar motion to Dimitri who often has to do the same to remember a modicum of social niceties. Ferdinand and Lorenz both hold themselves to ridiculous standards.

“Well then,” Ferdinand says with one of his small, strangely sincere smiles. “Please, I would be happy for you to join us for tea. Let me show you the way.”

Dimitri wonders how Ferdinand makes his expressions match his feelings. He wonders, too, as they walk through the main northern doors, if Lorenz as Count Gloucester will make Claude or Felix crazy first. 

Tea with early dinner is thankfully quiet and simple. It is set up in Lorenz’s reception room, and the only pomp is the presentation of warmed cured meat. Only Lorenz has dinner wine, thin in colour due to heavy watering. Dimitri is too thirsty for wine and drinks gladly freshly boiled water from the kettle. Ferdinand putters with an unadorned teapot to brew some sort of complicated herbal mixture that he doesn’t initially offer to either of them. He joins them only after he has had a full cup and retrieved an extra cup. 

“Do you suffer headaches, Dimitri?” Ferdinand asks as he sits down with the tea tray. 

“Fairly often, yes,” Dimitri says because if he lies, he will put Ferdinand in an awkward position if Claude ever asks. 

“Then have some of this after eating,” Ferdinand says, pouring Dimitri a cup of the herbal. “If you drink it with dinner, you won’t taste anything else.” 

“If the flavour is too much, you may add honey,” Lorenz says, far more pleasant now that they are both indoors and eating. 

Dimitri nods. He won’t need honey. Ferdinand serves himself generously turnips and, after a moment of consideration of what has remained on the meat platter, a bread roll. Dimitri puts a piece of bread crust in his mouth, but Lorenz doesn’t do anything more than frown. 

He has definitely walked into the middle of something. 

He solves his unusual social awareness by eating his dinner. It is quite good, but Dimitri can only register that the meat is not oily and nothing is too hard to chew. He eats with ease, listening vaguely to Lorenz speak about late calving. Ferdinand eats his turnips, nodding at points to which Dimitri mimics to telegraph his engagement. 

“How is the livestock situation in Fhirdiad?” Lorenz asks after the long monologue. 

Dimitri sips the cooling tea. He waves away Lorenz’s immediate reaction to reach for the honey pot, earning him a surprised, faintly impressed look. Dimitri takes another sip and does not point out that they essentially watched Ferdinand chug his cup earlier. He senses he does not want to get involved in whatever is going on between them. 

“We are limited as to be expected,” he says as he lowers his cup, peering curiously at the fragments of what looks like chamomile and some other flower he doesn’t recognise floating on the surface of the water. “Not enough meat nor fruits were stored during the war, so we must hope we are able to fare well enough our current stock. We are in a good situation for grain and goats, though.”

“Oh, goats,” Ferdinand says as Lorenz wrinkles his nose. “I had noticed there were quite a lot last I was in Fhirdiad.” 

“They are easy to feed, and the wyverns are fond of them,” Dimitri says as Lorenz serves himself the last of the meat. “I have become quite fond of them, too.”

“They taste good,” Ferdinand says with a note of enthusiasm as Lorenz puts a slice of meat in his mouth and nearly chokes. 

Dimitri, his cup half to his lips, blinks. He looks at Ferdinand, who also blinks. He seems puzzled as to why Dimitri and Lorenz are both staring at him. 

“Do you not eat goat?” Ferdinand asks, a little gobsmacked. 

“No,” Lorenz says, scandalised. 

“Yes,” Dimitri says, feeling terribly awkward. “I developed a taste for it during the war. I didn’t know goat was eaten in Adrestia.”

Ferdinand blinks. Frowns. He looks down at his hands clasped neatly on the tabletop. Dimitri can see that he is thinking very hard. 

“Certainly not at the high table,” he says, a little bit too low and somewhere between embarrassed and nostalgic, “but I grew up eating goat stew in the rainy season. I quite enjoy it with carrots and turnips.”

“Everything tastes better with carrots and turnips,” Lorenz says, clearly using all of his social acumen to recover the conversation. 

“Yes,” Dimitri says because he can take cues. 

“Well!” Lorenz says, very brightly; he stands abruptly, making both Dimitri and Ferdinand start. “I will go see if the eastern guest rooms are prepared. Claude shouldn’t be too long out unless he intends to travel in the dark.” 

“I hope not,” Dimitri says because Claude will not ride with more than a lamp. 

He stands so that Ferdinand may as well. Lorenz is already on the way out the main door. It is not impolite; this is his domain, and he may come and go as he pleases. Dimitri picks up his teacup, sipping it as Ferdinand watches Lorenz close the door before shaking himself. Clearing his head. 

_You couldn’t save us,_ Stepmother moans. 

“The dagger is in Lorenz’s bedroom,” Ferdinand says, expression serious and flat. “Do you want to see it or wait for Claude?” 

Dimitri swallows. He sets his empty teacup back on the table. Inclines his head. 

Ferdinand blinks. “As you wish,” he says, oddly blank. 

They go through the adjourning door. Lorenz’s bedroom is somehow exactly what Dimitri expected without him expecting anything. It is almost oppressively in House Gloucester colours, and his armour is on its stand in pristine condition. There are no clothes thrown over the dressing divide, and the wardrobe is a clearly magical piece to accommodate mage robes. It matches in the mage chest in the reception room. 

Ferdinand snaps his fingers and the candles light themselves with Fire. Dimitri hides his instinctive flinch. Casual magic like this always makes the hair on Dimitri’s neck stand up, even when he isn’t being threatened. 

“Here,” Ferdinand says, approaching the side table that has been moved from the reception room to next to Lorenz’s dressing table. “Let me unwrap it.”

“Why –” Dimitri says before he recognises the pale, slightly shiny wrapping covering the large lump. “Is that pegasus hide?” 

“Yes,” Ferdinand says as he puts his hands on it before Dimitri can stop him. 

Nothing happens. 

About a thousand questions and observations compete for prominence in his head, completely different than the ghosts. Dimitri is unable to voice any of them as Ferdinand uncovers the dagger wrapped in the unmistakable dragonhide sheath. The handle is obviously a dragon’s fang, shining white. It is carved and set with sapphires of the highest quality. 

Ferdinand pulls the hide out from beneath the dagger with a swift, sure tug. It barely makes a noise as it settles to lie unbound on the tabletop. Ferdinand folds the pegasus hide up and tucks it to hang between his belt. 

“Are these the sapphires of the same sources as those in your courting chain?” he asks. 

Dimitri swallows. He approaches the side table. Looks down. There is, as he expected, a glossy, almost green sheen to the dragonhide. An emerald sheen in the Fire-light to the bone. 

“Yes,” he says because he would expect nothing less of Marie. “I engaged this dragon as evidence of my heart’s desire.” 

For a moment, Ferdinand does not respond. Dimitri tears his eyes from the dagger. 

Ferdinand’s fingers shift against themselves. Their neat mannered folding into a mage’s steepling before his right wrist twists. His right fingers curl under his left. His thumb folds over the flat of his left fingers. An Enbarr court gesture to show willingness to keep a secret. His gaze is open and deep and elsewhere. 

Patricia taught Dimitri a number of Enbarr court gestures after Edelgard left. She did it in the privacy of her sewing room where Dimitri visited her early in the morning if he had the time. He would not have this knowledge otherwise. He isn’t supposed to have this knowledge to begin with Dimitri is uncomfortably aware that Ferdinand is probably not conscious of what his hands are doing. 

“You have sullied your blood,” Ferdinand says, and his gaze refocuses, “for this chance to seek Claude’s hand.” 

_Traitor,_ Father hisses. 

Dimitri breathes in. Out.

“Yes,” he says, and Ferdinand turns his head to him; he takes comfort in the understanding there. “Claude may choose. Or he may not. Either way, I do not regret any of what I have done.”

Ferdinand nods. He looks down. At his hands. His expression doesn’t change, but he also doesn’t release his hands. 

Dimitri remembers suddenly the Holy Mausoleum. He had been searching the battlefield for Felix, who had gone to unlock a chest, when he saw Ferdinand, swinging a Levin sword like a claymore. Dangerous, Dimitri had thought. Not even Sylvain used magical weapons so careless of his own body as that. He meant to bring it up, but he had forgotten in the aftermath. He was exhausted back then, wasting himself in his attempts to cling to a chivalric façade. 

Perhaps they were all hiding something back then. 

“During the war,” Ferdinand says, so softly the air itself nearly carries his words away, “at his mother’s request, I kept Claude in the dark about the few messages I received to your continued survival. He did not ask, of course, but that is because Claude tries not to be selfish. I know well how he yearned. He adores you.”

They are not living a high tale.

“I do not think,” he says, lifting his gaze to meet Dimitri, “that he would carve a future without you.” 

Distantly, there is a herald’s horn. 

Claude is here.

In the before: 

Claude was golden. He was a peculiar type of flashy with the intelligence and a worldly air to back it up. Unlike Edelgard, who knew and had survived cruelties at the cost of her colours, there was a shining quality to Claude that seeped into the very air he carried around himself. Dimitri had been attracted to him from their first meeting, if only because Claude smelt different. A hint of sandalwood, he later learned, which Claude enjoyed dabbing after bathing in the soft hairs behind his ears. It lingered, even when his experiments exploded in his face. 

That smell and worldliness formed Dimitri’s earliest opinions of Claude. Here was someone who liked the finer things in life, and yet he also did not judge people. To Claude, every interaction seem like a new game. Another piece added to a thousand different equations that Dimitri could see swirling in his bright but oddly reserved eyes. There are many people like that, most of whom attain high positions in court and guilds. 

Claude was different again there. Unlike those politicians and businesspeople, he liked people and didn’t view them as commodities. Claude treated people as equals and was eager to learn their merit. He was open to changing his opinions and, to a certain extent, letting new people into his inner life. Dimitri, in those academy days, felt no small amount of guilt when he realised Claude was like that. He stole Claude’s attention by then from where it could be better used.

Because Dimitri was selfish. He did not like people. He had great fondness for Sylvain, Ingrid, and Felix from childhood. He felt equal responsibility for all his fellow Blue Lions. But Dimitri knew better than anyone else that he was damaged goods. The strong, bright princeling mask was as empty as Byleth when they first met. Dimitri, against his own wishes, couldn’t help but distrust people. The only person he truly liked back then was Dedue, and that was because their trust was absolute. 

No secrets exist between him and Dedue. This has not changed, and it has allowed Dimitri, often despite himself, to remember friendship. In Almyra, Dedue flourished, and bearing witness to this was Dimitri’s chief pleasure. At his side, Dimitri was able to cling to his humanity as he took joy in Dedue’s laughter at the plays the Almyran court put on and his enthusiasm for shopping in the open air markets with Marie and her retinue. They rubbed off on him when it came to shopping. Dimitri has many fond memories of perusing fabrics and jewelry and even fonder memories of Dedue and Marie using him as a model to admire their purchases. 

“I am pleased that my son had the sensibility to choose a dancer,” Marie opined one very humid afternoon the first summer they spent in Almyra. 

Dimitri blinked. He couldn’t respond further because Marie was in the process of tying a strip of leather that would become a dancer’s collar to his neck. It was different from the dancing garb he had received in Garreg Mach. There were far more parts and much tighter fitting, but somehow much more airy.

“Is dancing desirable in courting?” Dedue asked from his seat at the sewing table. 

“Oh, yes,” Marie said, tightening and then working on cutting the strip to length. “But not that asinine formal Fódlan stuff. All those layers and constricting cuts. You have a lovely figure. Particularly fine chest and thighs. These are not to be hidden.” 

Dedue smiled as he pulled the needle through the embroidery he was working on. Dimitri could feel his cheeks burning even as Marie moved away to set the collar on the table and place the extra length into her scraps. He kept still as she sorted through the contents of the shopping they had done prior to lunch, aware that if he moved, it would disturb her concentration. He watched Dedue work on the embroidery. Summer florals that would line the sleeves and open trouser panels of Dimitri’s new dancing costume. 

It would fit him, unlike the poorly considered dancing clothes from Garreg Mach. It would also leave even less to the imagination. A cowardly part of Dimitri was near tears over exposing more skin. 

Despite reassurances, Dimitri is body conscious. Deeply so. He is very aware that he is as much scar tissue as unmarked flesh. There is nothing about his body that hasn’t avoided some sort of damage. His time in Fhirdiad before the mages and school staff sacrificed themselves made certain of that. Marie and Dedue’s care and unrelenting use of him as a model built up his tolerance of eyes upon every edge of his skin, but there is no way to cure how ill at ease Dimitri feels in it. 

The body consciousness does not improve even when he is fully clothed. As the coronation approaches, Dimitri knows he will need fittings. Formal attire as well as new day and evening wear. Money is not the issue. The Blaiddyd treasury is, despite all of Rufus’s other faults and with no small thanks to Rodrigue, in good condition. Dimitri has already looked over his accounts to assure that he may provide Claude a proper dowry. He does not have a relative to present him, although his ghosts will play party. He hopes Gustave or Felix will agree to stand for his family when Dedue presents him. 

He knows he is being silly. He is doing Claude a disservice in doubting himself. Claude loves him. He has shown Dimitri how deeply he cares in so many different ways. They went to war together, and Claude held Dimitri’s hand as Edelgard bled out on the stone floor. He has seen Dimitri at his worst. He thrills in the time they share even when they have argued recently about policy, Dimitri’s eating habits, and Claude’s inability to delegate. But –

 _He will be disgusted,_ Father whispers. 

_I didn’t train you to be a coward,_ Glenn murmurs. 

_You will never be enough,_ Stepmother sighs. 

Dimitri knows his faults. He is constantly reminded of them. No matter how proper he appears or how carefully he is presented, Dimitri cannot change his body let alone his failings. He cannot chase away the ghosts screaming in his ears.

But he must try. He will give himself to be worthy of even a little bit of Claude’s heart. 

This is how Dimitri wishes to live.


	3. Chapter 3

**iv.**

Dimitri does not remember very much of his student days. 

Garreg Mach was always mild. Always clean of debris. Always a little too controlled. Dimitri found the fact that weeds even grew for him to occasionally pull with Dedue, Sylvain, or Ferdinand to be almost unreal. Nothing seemed quite right, the very stone and earth stinking of eons of magic. 

Byleth was just like Garreg Mach. Strong and competent but somehow immaterial. Dimitri was very glad to have Byleth as the Blue Lions teacher rather than Hanneman, who he couldn’t trust, and Manuela, who he felt nervous around, but Byleth seemed so still somehow. Like the empty vessel that Dimitri wished he could be when the ghosts shrieked their demands for mindless violence over even revenge. 

Tumbling with Claude and their fraught courting prevented Dimitri from slipping into that emptiness. In Garreg Mach, tumbling was not something new to Dimitri. It was also not new to Claude, which had been a bit of a relief. They knew, however, different things. Dimitri liked to think that he was acceptable at heavy petting because he did know his own body. He baulked to think of it with a woman, though. Where would he put his hands first? He did know what a woman looked like beneath smallclothes, of course, but the images were either scientific and dry or hard to mentally translate from an illustration to a physical body. 

Thanks to Felix before their maiden battle changed them, he also fancied he was passable at kissing. Not half as good as Felix, though, because Felix and Sylvain had been into each other by then, and they got to spend more time together overall. Felix, though, had assumed it was his duty to teach Dimitri a bit because that was how they were. Dimitri had enjoyed Felix’s thin lips because they were warm and often tasted like the mint leaves he liked to chew between meals. 

So, when he first fell into bed among the chaos of Claude’s dorm room, Dimitri thought rather self-confidently:

_Well, I can help him feel nice_

He had not, quite stupidly, accounted for Claude’s tongue. 

As soon as they were curled together in bed, Claude a solid weight in Dimitri’s lap, he pulled back. The faintly surprised and utterly wicked grin on his face burned itself into Dimitri’s eye, undamaged and shining until his dying day. 

“Why, Dima,” he crowed, a hand’s fingers curled in the then short hair at the base of Dimitri’s skull. “You are a _naughty_ boy!” 

Claude was very good with his tongue. In many ways, of course, but there was no way for Dimitri to prepare how much he liked Claude’s words in bed. He knew just what to say to get Dimitri riled up but stayed just far enough from offending him. Some of the things Claude would say were complete and utter filth and made Dimitri’s ears burn as hot as his loins. The ghosts never had a chance to reach him over the murmured litany falling from Claude’s dirty tongue. 

This is something they rekindled in the kindness and almost magical obscurity of the Gloucester guestroom the night after Gronder burned. In the intervening years, Claude had learned to ask directly for the roughness that once drew him to court Dimitri, and Dimitri did not have to watch his strength as he had in Garreg Mach. After four years of only himself and fantasy to keep him company, Dimitri also relished begging Claude to take him over. To have him full, to dominate Dimitri’s body as well as his heart and chase everything else away. 

There is, of course, a part of Dimitri that feels bad for how much he enjoys this. He feels more than a little pathetic, especially when they’re so obvious that they chase off the people around them. He feels awful still for the state that he left the Gloucester guest bedroom in, although Lorenz has been kind enough never to mention that. They broke furniture and tore bedding. Lorenz did not bill them for this.

“Accept my hospitality!” he said when Dimitri had attempted to apologise. “And don’t tell me details! Unless you need a healer, I don’t need them.”

There was no time to argue. There never has been, even before the war. Their time as students in the mildness of Garreg Mach, the years of war built upon the greed and sins of the past: even if they had known how to ask for time, they would not have it. They had only known what was then, and the pleasure of each other’s bodies. 

Dimitri, even as he rushed from Gloucester with Claude’s scent and touch still upon his skin, had a moment of weakness:

_I love him_ , he thought bitterly as he threw himself upon Lucia’s back, _but this is what we must obey_

Claude is enraged.

Lorenz, who had gone to greet him at the gate, clearly has no idea how to deal with this. Claude’s shouting preceded them both to Lorenz’s rooms, startling both Dimitri and Ferdinand, who looks as if he won’t be able to handle much more excitement if this keeps up.

“Dima!” Claude roars as he slams into Lorenz’s reception room, fury radiating so intensely that his Crest is active. “Dima, why, what _did my parents make you do, why did you listen to them_ —DIMA!”

He hits like a battering ram. They have a substantial difference in strength. Dimitri stumbles but doesn’t go down. Claude fists his fingers into the fabric of Dimitri’s collar, face completely wild, and shakes as hard as he can.

“Why?” he howls, absolutely inconsolable. “Dima, you _fool_ –”

“Claude,” Ferdinand starts.

“Not now!” Claude shouts, not letting go of Dimitri; his shaking is useless, but if he pulls any tighter, Dimitri will choke. “I will deal with you later –”

“YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING,” Lorenz roars.

It is so loud that the walls shudder. The House waking for its master. This effectively cuts through Claude’s rage and Dimitri’s dumbness. Lorenz stands with his hands steepled, his entire body lit by his magic and Crest. 

The walls heave.

“You are in my House,” he says, and Dimitri would get down on his knees and apologise but Claude is still holding him. “You will enact no power over anyone or anything within my walls!”

“Lorenz,” Ferdinand says, absolutely wretched as he crosses over and places his hands at the base of Lorenz’s wrists. “Stop.”

The walls breathe. Out. In.

Claude blinks once. Twice.

His Crest subsides.

“Yes,” he says, and he tears his eyes from Dimitri’s face to look to Lorenz; he marginally loosens his hold on Dimitri’s collar. “I understand. I will not.”

The walls still. 

Lorenz doesn’t look at Dimitri or Claude. He looks down at his hands and Ferdinand’s, which are still clutching his wrists. For a moment, he studies them, pale with blue veins standing stark in the banking Fire light. Dimitri realises the candle Fire had become columns, reacting to the magic. 

“Goddess keep us,” Lorenz whispers.

He twists his hands to cover Ferdinand’s knuckles with his palms. Ferdinand’s face is hidden by his hair. He does not speak. He also doesn’t pull away. 

Dimitri suddenly is very certain of the nature of their relationship.

It is quiet. Claude looks at them. From this angle, Dimitri can see every shift in his expression. There is a lot of guilt and residual anger and even more a sad sort of fear. Claude does not create regrets, but that doesn’t mean he lacks doubt. Everyone needs a shield and a rock. Dimitri knows that these two are those pieces for Claude.

There are so many truths they should speak but cannot. It is not the done thing. 

It shouldn’t have to be like this, Dimitri thinks. 

Sometimes Dimitri thinks chivalry is a disease. 

Carefully, without taking his hands from Lorenz’s grip, Ferdinand shifts. Looks up and back. His eyes flicker over Claude and Dimitri. Searching and very clear. 

“May we speak about this?” he asks, and Dimitri knows he means the dagger rather than the plethora of other topics at hand. “But without shouting?” 

“Yes,” Dimitri says, suddenly aware he may be the calmest in the room. 

“Yes,” Claude and Lorenz echo, and Claude finally releases Dimitri’s collar. 

“Good,” Ferdinand says, and the relief washes out of his voice and leaves his next words out of his control and somewhat faint. “I really don’t like shouting.” 

Dimitri carefully does not react to that. Claude winces slightly and Lorenz, who has started to move them towards the few seats in the room, glances at Ferdinand with a level of contriteness that indicates this is built upon something recent. Ferdinand himself doesn’t seem particularly pleased that he said that aloud, but he doesn’t take it back. 

They end up pulling Lorenz’s dressing bench and footstool out and placing them near the hearth. Dimitri remains standing because he moves the table with the dagger into the light. It glistens, more striking than a chest full of precious gems. It truly did turn out spectacularly. 

Claude, sitting on the stool, breathes out shakily. When Dimitri looks to him, Claude gazes at the dagger as if it is the ugliest thing he has ever seen. 

“Dima,” he says, and Dimitri has never heard his voice like that; he sounds like he is so intimately wounded he may die, “why?”

This is not what Dimitri wanted. 

But he never hoped for anything in the first place. 

“I love you,” he says because it is true. 

Claude looks up. He stares at Dimitri with a stricken expression not unlike when he pressed the courting chain into Dimitri’s hand at Garreg Mach. Dimitri never wanted to see that expression again. 

“So why did you sell your soul?” 

For a moment, Dimitri cannot speak. His mouth has fallen open. 

The law of the Church of Seiros states that harm done to others outside of its command forfits the soul. They all think he has committed blasphemy.

It is so rare that Dimitri is surprised that it takes him what feels like an age to think again. He looks away from Claude, to the dagger, and then back to Claude, Lorenz, and Ferdinand, who all stare at him half for an explanation, half in mutual horror. 

_Oh no,_ he thinks.

_They don’t know?_ he boggles.

_How could they know?_ Dimitri suddenly realises, feeling like he has been struck by Thoron in his own brain. _No one has publicly courted a member of the royal house of Almyra in a century, and they are our traditional enemies, and Claude has never been treated fully as heir._

“I didn’t,” Dimitri says, suddenly very solid. 

Claude blinks. Once. Twice. 

“What?”

“I didn’t slay the dragon,” Dimitri says. 

Claude, Lorenz, and Ferdinand stare at him. 

Dimitri stares back. 

“But,” Claude says, small and a little high, “how…?”

_I must explain,_ Dimitri realises.

He feels himself straighten.

“The task isn’t to slay the dragon,” he says, and he feels bizarre and oddly giddy. “It is to obtain the hide and bone.”

“Yes,” Claude starts.

Dimitri can see a terrified spark in his eyes. 

_Stupid boy,_ his father sighs.

Dimitri speaks quickly.

“When I came upon the dragon in the desert, it was hungry. They are sentient and not unreasonable. After I spoke my challenge, it told me it was not interested in fighting because of the hunger. I understood, and I offered it a trade. So it gave me skin it would soon shed for my eye. It found I tasted good, so it gave me a dominant fang.”

Claude and Ferdinand gauwk at him. Lorenz slowly lowers his head and puts his face in his hands. His shoulders shake. He might be crying.

Dimitri feels kind of bad. But also, even with his father’s reminder, oddly proud of himself.

“I thought it was quite fair,” he says.

Ferdinand slowly put his fist to his mouth. Claude closes his mouth. Opens it. Lorenz is definitely crying.

“Dima,” Claude says, very choked up.

He can’t seem to make himself say anything else. He’s shaking. Dimitri is suddenly very concerned he might faint. He steps forward, only for Claude to put a hand up. Dimitri stops. 

“I understand now,” Ferdinand says, partly muffled by his fist against his lower lip and so calm that he sounds blank; Dimitri has no idea what he is staring at. “We are stupid.” 

For some reason, this makes Lorenz cry harder. Claude breathes in. Blinks hard. He brings his hand back to himself to press his fingers to the bridge of his nose. He blinks again. This is his own trick to put a handle on hysteria. After a few moments, Lorenz also seems to begin to calm down. 

“Dimitri,” Ferdinand says, and his eyes are looking Dimitri’s direction, but there is no way to tell what they are actually focused on, “I can think of several topics that we must discuss fairly urgently, but I also think that I have physically had all I may handle for tonight. By your leave, I am quite certain I need to go lie down.” 

“I am coming with you,” Lorenz says, still with his head in his hands.

Ferdinand blinks. He looks to Lorenz. At the top of his head and his shoulders. 

“But this is your bedroom,” he says, somewhere between a statement and a question. 

Lorenz sits up so quickly that he nearly bashes his head into Ferdinand’s nose. “I am not staying in the same room with this!” he says, snot-nosed and clearly hysterical. “Goddess blood, you are all impossible!” 

He stands up. Starts for the door. They watch him go, storming out of his own rooms in a flurry of Gloucester colours. Ferdinand stands up, much more slowly. He looks like he may be experiencing vertigo. He walks to the side. The door that leads to the servants passage. 

“Dimitri King, Duke Riegan,” he says, clearly at the absolute end of his tether as he opens the door, “good evening.”

He shuts the door. 

Dimitri stares. 

He senses that there is something quite farcical about all of this. 

He also is aware that this is his fault. 

He rouses himself enough to look back to Claude, who is looking at the dagger. His hands hang listless between his thighs. In the light of the hearth and the stubs of the bedroom candles, he looks wan and somewhat overwrought. Dimitri moves to him. He kneels down between Claude’s knees and takes his left hand. It’s cold. Claude looks down at him, needy and open and more than a little fractured.

_This is where I am needed,_ Dimitri thinks as he begins to rub Claude’s fingers between his palms. _Here, where I may keep you warm._

They sit for a long time like this. Dimitri warms Claude’s hands and tucks them against his skull. Claude, after a few minutes of allowing Dimitri to soothe him, stirs. Dimitri bows his head so that Claude may open the clasp of the courting chain. His hands are sure and gentle as they undo Dimitri’s braids. Unweave the chain. He lifts it and then settles the length around Dimitri’s neck. Makes loops the heavy gold until the top clasp can lock around the back of the Emblem of Almyra. He keeps his hand on the Emblem and his eyes on Dimitri. 

Dimitri gazes upwards.

There is no greater sense of calm than when Claude holds him like this.

“Dima,” Claude starts, wretched, before he stops and looks to the dagger. 

It shines as emerald in the Fire light. Dimitri only dares to watch it out the side of his eye. If he moves towards it, Claude will let go. 

He does not want to be parted again. 

_Please_

“I love you,” Claude says, and his gaze returns to Dimitri, drifting down to his hand holding them still. “Did…” and he falters; swallows. “Did you do this to please me?” 

Dimitri swallows. He shifts slightly, so that he can clasp Claude’s ankle with his left hand. Claude blinks. He still looks upset. 

They must speak their truths. It is frightening. 

Dimitri does not want to be a coward. 

“I did it to please myself.” 

Claude blinks. Surprise. It eases his expression. He looks back to the dagger, lips drawing into a fine line. 

When he looks back, there is power in his eyes. 

He looks as he did back in the baths at Garreg Mach when he asked to court Dimitri. 

“Explain.” 

The life Dimitri wants to build for Claude: 

It never had to include him. All Dimitri had to do was survive the war. There was no winning, but losing was not allowed. If Edelgard triumphed, the House Riegan would have to collapse. The Empire would never accept the Roundtable, and the Alliance would be broken. Claude would either be dead or forced to return to Almyra. He would be robbed of choices, and Almyra would one day face Edelgard. Perhaps not in outright war, but they would never have enough common interests to have peace. They would feud over resources. Fertile land. Trade with the Far East. Access to Morfis and the sea. 

Trade interests and finance are things Dimitri learned sat upon Rodrigue’s knee. Lambert was never one for long policy discussions and even less for the financial side of affairs. Rodrigue and Rufus were better teachers, although Rufus was only rarely welcome to be alone with Dimitri before the Tragedy. He was never unkind to Dimitri, but Lambert and him were tumultuous, so Rufus kept Dimitri at arm’s length.

“I am glad you take to numbers,” Rufus did praise Dimitri once when he joined Rodrigue in teaching about silver inflation.

“It is a shame we do not have time to go deep like this more often,” Rodrigue agreed as Dimitri carefully puzzled his way through their example shipping manifests. “You are far more patient than my sons.”

After the Tragedy, Dimitri spent nearly nine months convalescing. He wasn’t invalid, but he was also not publicly presentable. He spent most of his time clinging to Dedue, who he was frightened would be killed if he wasn’t within earshot. He took unkindly to most visitors, especially Rufus who had ordered Duscar massacred. If it had not been for the fact that Rufus was his sole kin, Dimitri may have killed him in the early months.

The only communication outside of official settings he and his uncle had then were economic discussions. Rufus regularly provided him accounts and manifests, and Dimitri looked them over and gave comment. His comments were taken seriously, and Rufus did not take credit for them. It helped, Dimitri later realised, to reassure the court that he was not addled. It also helped to show the court he was very much a capable future sovereign. When he returned to public life on what would have been his father’s thirty-ninth birthday, he was respectfully welcomed. 

“You spent the past months in deep study,” Count Galatea commented at the subdued dinner. 

“Ah,” Dimitri said, unsure how to respond because the Count had never spoken directly to him without Ingrid or Glenn present before. 

_I’m right here,_ Glenn snarled. 

“I was impressed,” the Count said, missing Dimitri’s twitch as he briefly nodded to an attendant refilling his wine. “Your comment regarding the unaccounted cost of transporting grain from Gronder is very much on point.” 

“Let us not discuss business at dinner, Francis,” the Margrave Gautier grumbled after slugging down his wine. “We’ll ruin a good roast.” 

Neither Rodrigue nor Rufus said anything, and the Count narrowed his eyes at the Margrave but let the conversation pass. Dimitri spent the rest of the dinner trying not to glance constantly behind himself for Dedue, who was standing as his retainer for the first time in public, or his ghosts. The rest of the party was no help. The Margrave and Rufus both got very drunk, and the Count was less drunk but more belligerent. Rodrigue, who also wasn’t sober, kept it together enough to extract Dimitri and Dedue from the chaos quickly taking over before dessert.

“I am sorry,” he said as he saw them into Dimitri’s reception room, reaching out and steadying himself on the door frame. “This is my fault. I should not have allowed a barrel to be opened.” 

“Thank you for walking us,” Dimitri said, very conscious that Dedue had not gotten anything to eat nor drink. 

“It is the least I can do,” Rodrigue mumbled, looking oddly contrite before he roused himself and bowed. “Please excuse me. I must try and stop them coming to blows.” 

“Of course,” Dimitri said, suddenly very frightened that they would not be able to get Dedue food after all.

It was, unfortunately, Dimitri’s return to public life that marked his elective withdrawal from forming new relationships. Dedue and Rodrigue were the only people who seemed to catch onto this. Dedue understood and did not criticise, but Dimitri could tell it burdened him. Rodrigue did not understand. He constantly tried to find ways to reach out, especially once Dimitri and Felix had their maiden battle and they fully fell apart. 

“Now that you have had your maiden battle,” Rodrigue said when he tried to broach the topic with his faultless diplomacy, “you are an adult by the law of our land. It would be proper for you to entertain offers for courting.”

“Or take initiative,” the Margrave Gautier grunted because they were having tea after a long court meeting on the yearly Sreng defense; Dimitri had attended the meeting to present summary points regarding trade impact with Edmund and Kupula; everyone had seemed to find his presentation overwhelming, so Dimitri suspected the Margrave had snuck white liquor into his own teacup. “Not as much initiative as my son, mind.” 

“They are not very nice about Sylvain,” Dedue observed that evening as he helped Dimitri ready for bed. 

“No,” Dimitri sighed, feeling extremely depressed.

The court life after the Tragedy was much like this. Dimitri knows with hindsight that there is not much he could do about it. His ghosts were too loud, and he was too young, and there were too many people who would take Dedue from him if they could. They had to worry about keeping fed and Rufus making terrible policy decisions that sent Dimitri and Dedue to the frontlines to recover troop morale. Rodrigue was their only true ally, but Dimitri could not depend on him to do more than be a defensive listening ear. 

So Dimitri buried himself in training and in ledgers. Rufus never pretended he knew half as much as Dimitri regarding the financials of the Kingdom. The only court sessions that Dimitri never missed were the fortnightly budget reviews, and he kept the House accounts officially after his maiden battle. This was usually the duty of a trusted hand or of the spouse, but Dimitri had no intention of seeing it to anyone else. 

“It is rare,” he overheard the Margrave commenting to Rodrigue in the small parlor not long before Dimitri and Dedue left for Garreg Mach, “for a man of the Prince’s military caliber to be so dedicated to domestic affairs.” 

“I believe he finds maths meditative,” Rodrigue responded as papers were shuffled and stacked. “His Highness is still very much like his father.”

“If only he had Lambie’s gab,” the Margrave mumbled. “How is he going to catch a good lady when the only thing he will speak at length about is the rising cost of iron?” 

“For all you complain about Sylvain…” Rodrigue muttered, which was the point that Dimitri considered his eavesdropping was enough and slid his heels along the floor to leave soundlessly. 

During the war, imbedded in Garreg Mach, Dimitri spent even more time doing accounts. His hold on reality was exceedly poor as they bided their time to fill their wyvern fleet, only briefly improving when Byleth suddenly reappeared early in the fourth year. Dedue’s spirits were incredibly high after that, and this allowed Dimitri to crawl out for brief periods of time from his refuges in irregular warfare and reconciling their books. 

It became a joke among their inner circle. Whenever Dimitri found himself tilting towards the deep end, someone would show up with a maths exercise or new shipment costs or, in one memorable instance, a geometry problem to do with the spires of an ancient castle. That one had been from Seteth, who sat with him as he puzzled over it for nearly a week and was quite floored when he actually came up with a solution. 

“Remarkable,” Seteth said, picking up Dimitri’s work to better read them in the candlelight; his eyes were wide and not quite right. “Seven hundred years…” 

Dimitri did not ask him to expound. He was already looking over the kitchen account, comparing the price they had paid for new chickens to what they had paid two seasons before. It had gone up, even though they had also traded a few Church relics that would have sold for triple on the black market. He felt a great deal of annoyance about his and was warring with himself on the urge to hunt down the merchant who had swindled them and pummel him. 

“Dimitri,” Seteth said. 

He looked up. Seteth had a very pensive expression that did not shift at whatever beastly expression Dimitri offered. His cup of evening strong wine is mostly empty, and Dimitri has noticed that drinking tends to make Seteth more willing to speak of things he usually only shares with Byleth or, presumably, Flayn. 

“Do you plan to build a new House?”

Dimitri set down his pencil. He stared for a moment at his angry scribbles, the thick circles around all the inflated prices. He drums his pencil-blackened fingers on the tabletop. The heavy wood already has dents from him doing this constantly.

He thinks about holding the Dragon’s hand as it cut a fang from its gums.

“Claude von Riegan,” Dimitri says, gazing upwards as Claude’s eyes shine:

“I wish to make our Houses one.”


	4. Chapter 4

In the years that follow: 

Claude holds Dimitri in his hands. 

His left rests, fingers threaded in Dimitri’s hair. The right curls around the Emblem of Almyra where it rests upon Dimitri’s neck. Between his collarbones, beneath his throat. In the light of the hearth, his face is shadowed. His eyes, which do not leave Dimitri’s face, are bright. 

Dimitri keeps his hand on Claude’s ankle. He does not move. 

“Dima,” Claude whispers, soft and breathy, a million stars and dreams:

“I want to marry you.” 

**v.**

In Dimitri’s earliest memories, he spent each morning and evening in his family’s chapel in prayer. His father was not always there, but he was king and had many duties; he would attend whenever he could. Part of Dimitri’s education was this morning and evening ritual preceding breaking fast and evening meals. Dimitri, young and soft and eager to please, enjoyed the song and prayer and the stories of the kind and benevolent Goddess. In his later youth, he and Ingrid often prayed together while Felix zoned out and Sylvain stared at the ceiling and tried not to act up. 

His early experiences are akin to the soundness of faith of Mercedes and Marianne, and as a student, he envied them more than a little for being able to still find solace. The Tragedy and all that came after robbed him of his faith. What kind and merciful Goddess would allow such awful things? Dimitri could not reconcile this, especially as every time he shut his eyes in prayer he heard the screams of the dead and smelt the massacred flesh of the innocent.

Prayer only brings him back to the Tragedy. Dimitri had prayed fervently, uselessly, as his hands clutched his father’s head and signet ring. As he staggered lost in the conflagration that swallowed the fields, the orchards, the towns of Duscar known for their brilliant fabrics and gorgeous flowers. He prayed until he wished for death and became convinced he had died. Until he no longer knew words, and the prayers became lost in the noise that was the rotting skull in his hands. 

This is how he met Dedue. How they were found. His father’s skull had rotted open, teeth falling from the gums. Dedue cowered from his hand, only taking it when a sword cut through Dimitri’s back. Dimitri remembers what came next with absolute clarity:

He swung around, even as the sword struck him again in the side. The soldiers blanched at the sight of the skull in his arms, and the commander’s eyes lit upon the ring Dimitri had tucked upon his thumb and stuffed with his father’s falling hair. Dimitri staggered and dropped his father’s head to grasp what he later knew to be a blacksmith’s hammer. He lifted it above his head, his Crest shining with all the power he had left. 

He was a beast, and he roared. 

“The Prince Dimitri,” the commander choked and took flight. 

They brought Rufus. Dimitri, who had gathered his father’s head, stopped apologising to it long enough to rise and take up the hammer again at the sound of approach. The sight of his uncle, dressed in House regalia and wearing a golden circlet:

Dimitri feels sick satisfaction every time he thinks of how he knocked his uncle from his horse with the hammer. 

That is where his memory of that horrible time ends. Dimitri does not know how he was subdued except that he was. Dedue has admitted he must have seen what happened, but he cannot remember well himself. Lambert’s head was recovered, and Dimitri was parted from the signet ring long enough to clean it. By the time Dimitri was lucid again, they were back in Fhirdiad and he was on bedrest to begin his long convalescence. 

Rufus walked with a limp ever after. 

It was not something for which Dimitri ever attempted to ask Rufus nor the Goddess forgiveness. He did not want it from his uncle and it went against the tenants of the Goddess. From a theological standpoint, though, all those involved in the Tragedy were goddessless fools and damned. This Dimitri intimately understood when he was told the Baron Dominic abandoned his family. 

In what became a long-term mockery of the Church of Seiros, Dimitri and Dedue worshipped together in the House Blaiddyd chapel. They were there at least once a day until they went to Garreg Mach. There were, of course, practical purposes for this. They were rarely out of each other’s sight in Fhirdiad for each other’s safety. Dimitri did not wish to make a mockery of his duties, but he could not pray anymore than he could silence the wailing voices. Dedue himself prayed each morning and evening alongside Dimitri, but his prayers were sincere and to his goddesses and gods. He wished sometimes that he could come to know Dedue’s faith. Sharing his faith with Dimitri was the sole thing that Dedue was reticent to do, a place of privacy that Dedue could not help but keep for himself. Dimitri did not resent that. For all that Dedue had lost, he deserved to keep that. 

Dimitri knows, too, that his kind memories of Church are not shared by many of his peers, and even those of great faith have fraught relations. Marianne’s faith is rooted in guilt and the desire to turn herself into someone else. Her prayers were litanies of self-condemnation and the need for forgiveness. She prayed to all of the saints as well as the Goddess, and she could offer readings on all of the feast day liturgy by heart. None of this brought her peace, but it was at least a balm that she murmured to Dorte when she thought no one was around to listen. 

Ferdinand often spent an inordinate amount of time kneeling in front of the statue of Saint Cichol. It was different from his participation at mass where he knew the regular prayers and songs by heart. Dimitri sometimes arrived and left from evening choir practice with Ferdinand not moving from the same position before the statue: on his knees with his hands behind his back. Penance, although Dimitri could not imagine for what. It was a dependable place to find him, if he was not in the stables or at lessons. 

It is was how Dimitri last saw Ferdinand before Edelgard led Imperial Forces on Garreg Mach. Ferdinand looked up at Dimitri’s approach. He was a little slow to stand, which meant that Dimitri had found him after a good amount of time in that position. 

“Dimitri,” he said, and he looked tired, which was a new look on him then. “You should sleep. It will be a hard day tomorrow.” 

Dimitri shook his head. He didn’t point out that Ferdinand should take his own advice. They had always been kind to each other in their camaraderie with tending their horses. Attempting to find the right words, Dimitri looked up at Saint Cichol, who shone from recent cleaning. Byleth had taken a special interest over the past few months to repairs to this statue in particular. When he looked back to Ferdinand, he was a little surprised to find Ferdinand looking away. Down. He looked up again hastily when he realised Dimitri was observing him. 

“You do not have to answer,” Dimitri started because he realised that he was asking selfishly, “but do you find solace in your penance?”

Ferdinand blinked. Not in confusion. Just honest surprise. He glanced up at Saint Cichol, his face uncertain for a moment, before he looked back to Dimitri, no more certain. 

“I think,” he said, very slowly as he felt the words out for himself, “I wish I did.”

Dimitri breathed out. In. 

Something in him felt very solid. 

“Thank you,” he said, and he smiled because he wanted to show Ferdinand he meant it. “I think I understand something for myself now, too.” 

Felix arrives in the dead of night to Gloucester. 

This is not entirely unexpected. Dimitri had suspected that either Dedue or Felix would follow after the activity of the day. While he is generally trusted to travel on his own if Claude is his final destination, there is still a reasonable fear that he will have had trouble. They allow him some leeway, but more would be improper and irresponsible considering Dimitri’s track record. 

Claude rouses Dimitri from their position curled by the hearth when Felix is shown into Lorenz’s reception room by one of Ferdinand’s hands. Felix looks at them with the expression of someone very weirded out by literally everything about their situation. 

“Isn’t this a master quarters?” Felix asks after clearly realising Dimitri and Claude had been doing something very intimate and resolutely repressing the realisation. 

“These are Lorenz’s rooms,” Claude says as Dimitri attempts to brush ash from his trousers unobtrusively. 

Felix opens his mouth. His self-preservation clearly kicks him. He closes his mouth. Dimitri straightens up as Felix’s eyes momentarily unfocus as he very briefly goes somewhere else. When he refocuses, there is only a very slight highness to his tone.

“I suppose this has to do with Ferdinand’s message,” he says with the diplomacy he has directly copied from his father and Dimitri knows causes him no small amount of grief.

“Yes,” Claude says and does not mention that the dagger is lying in the room behind them. 

“Claude and I are truly to be wed,” Dimitri says because that is the important part, “and our Houses combined.” 

Felix stares. 

A moment passes.

“Excuse me,” Felix says, clearly not asking to be excused. “I believe I need to sit down.” 

They end up sitting at Lorenz’s reception table. The dinner from earlier has long been cleared, but a carafe of water and a bottle of wine are set. Felix helps himself to the wine. He takes a bracing sip from the cup he pours himself, not offering to pass the bottle to either Claude or Dimitri. Claude seems somewhat put off by this even as he pours them all water. 

“I understand,” Felix says, putting the bottle between his legs and resolutely not looking directly at either of them, “why the House greeting was so unusual for Gloucester now.” 

Claude doesn’t seem to know exactly how to respond so holds his tongue. This is the right choice, Dimitri would say. He watches Felix and how tightly he grips his wine cup. 

“On behalf of the House Fraldarius,” Felix says, finally looking first at Claude and then Dimitri with a gallows expression, “congratulations on your upcoming marriage.” 

“Thank you?” Claude asks, unsure how to take it. 

“Thank you,” Dimitri says, meaning it. 

Felix stares at them. He is focused, much in the way that Dimitri has come to be familiar. Felix as the Duke Fraldarius is brash and quick to start a fight, but he has taken on some of his father’s thoughtful quality. It is an unpleasant look for him where Rodrigue had preferred a smile, and his words are abrasive most of the time, but this is to be expected. He is not his father. 

“Is this why you have been conducting an assessment of your House account?” he asks Dimitri, very serious.

“What,” Claude says.

Dimitri pauses. He had meant to tell Claude this himself, but they have a habit of getting distracted. He hadn’t been aware Felix knew of his private work, but it makes sense. Felix had been the one to hand over Rodrigue’s copy of the House Blaiddyd ledgers and has been aware of Dimitri’s aggressive reassessment of war damages to farmable land.

“Partially, yes,” Dimitri says.

“Dima,” Claude says, and there is a warning in his tone, “why.” 

“Dimitri,” Felix says, and his use of Dimitri’s actual name is enough to briefly override his automatic priority from responding to Claude, “as ruling and rightful King of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, members of the court with voting rights must ratify the payment of any dowry involving your person.”

“Dima,” Claude says, very dangerous. 

Dimitri sits very still. He feels a little hot. There’s a distant whistling in his right inner ear. 

“As head and sole living member of House Blaiddyd,” he hears himself say, even as Felix stares at him and Claude’s expression turns mutinous, “it is essential that the House be made secure as it is close to extinction. Offering House resources as dowry is for the good of the Kingdom as the Fhirdiad treasury is meager, especially when measured in this post-war economy.” 

“Dima,” Claude says, and he closes his hand around the thick loops of gold and sapphire courting chain, “I do not accept fealty, and I will not accept a dowry.” 

“Is this it,” Felix says, very bluntly and without inflection. “Is this the thing you finally fight your court on instead of faking that disgusting reasonable, humane mask? Is this it, you wild boar –”

“Hey,” Claude says, clearly disliking Felix’s tone.

“Living hostage to your instincts,” Felix continues and his hands are flat on his thighs and as empty as his voice, “wasting the dreams of those who fought and died in the hope that you would return, and you repay them by debasing yourself before people who care about you because you don’t think you deserve love.”

Claude is silent. Mouth shut. His eyes are very wide. Dimitri –

“I am right,” Felix says. 

Dimitri does not move. He feels inexplicably calm. He does not intend to be anything further than what Felix has assessed because he is correct. Dimitri is not a liar. 

“None of this will collapse my House,” Dimitri says because it won’t; his numbers are sound; he has no living relatives to please; he stares at the space between their feet. “If we are to unite our Houses and establish stability in Fodlan, we must build a new treasury not dependant upon a singular source. If it is my dowry, gifted in support of my married life, I may use that as a resource for investment. It would rightfully belong to me for the maintenance of our combined House, and what damages are incurred will not strike a singular individual. It may be used as a buffer in this meager time.” 

“A country is not a household, and this is greater than the Kingdom,” Felix says even as Claude reaches out and takes Dimitri’s chin to force him to lift his head. “Your dowry is substantial, but –”

“If this is your plan,” Claude says, and his eyes are narrow and angry, “then you should have told me.” 

Dimitri does not insult Claude by pointing out he would not have accepted it. A part of Dimitri is cringing that this is all laid bare like this. He had intended to have this fight in the closed doors of his council. Sylvain and Dedue would understand, and Gustave would come to see sense, but he always knew Felix would fight him. He always knew Claude would fight him.

Gazing into Claude’s flickering, darkened eyes, Dimitri thinks: _maybe it was always meant to be like this._

“I don’t give a damn about your dowry,” Claude asserts, his expression narrow but some of the anger subsiding, “but this clearly matters a lot to you. If this is the only way to convince you that you are my equal, I will a dowry myself. We will establish the treasury together.”

This is not what Dimitri wanted. 

This must show on his face because Claude does not ease his hold. Felix watches them with an odd expression. Dimitri is aware that Felix has recently gone through a great deal of personal stress. He isn’t sure how Felix has been handling it. This is –

_Selfish thoughtless ungrateful stupid_

_where is our revenge_

_selfish_

_You left us to rot!_

“Dima,” Claude says, and his brows have drawn together in alarm. “Where did you go?” 

Felix sighs. He picks up his abandoned wine cup and considers it for a long moment before putting it back down. He still has the bottle between his legs. Dimitri realises, rather distantly, that he has it not because he wants it but as a precaution. 

Dimitri wonders how Felix learned that trick. 

Claude lets go of Dimitri’s chin, more concerned with the lack of response. He cards his fingers through Dimitri’s hair. His hands are steady but a little stiff. 

Dimitri is afraid if he opens his mouth the ghosts will come out. 

Felix eyes him knowingly. 

“We can talk about this later,” Claude says, not quite understanding but trying to be reassuring. “Here, Dima, we should probably see if Lorenz has a guest bedroom for us. We were rather rude earlier, chasing him from his own room. I will apologise to him and Ferdinand in the morning.”

“It is morning,” Felix says, but even he looks to be desiring little more than a bed. “But, yeah, Ferdinand’s hand did mention guest rooms. The eastern wing. What do you need to apologise to Ferdinand for?” 

Claude nods. “That is where I always stay,” he says, a little strained; he doesn’t answer the question.

He shifts his hold from the courting chain to take Dimitri’s hand. Dimitri looks down. 

They fit together so nicely. 

“Come,” Claude murmurs, warm and alive and real: 

“Come to bed.” 

Dimitri goes.

If chivalry is a disease: 

Dimitri wonders sometimes how things would have changed if he had been born differently. If he had been born without the Blaiddyd Crest, would his parents have tried for another child? Rufus also had a minor Crest, but he was in every other way not suited to rule. Even with Dimitri, a second child would have been proper. It is natural to have more than one to secure the interests of the House. 

Lambert was, however, loyal to a fault. He did not sire bastards, and he did not keep consorts. He loved Dimitri’s mother, and he loved Patricia, who had not wished to sire more children. Or perhaps she could not. Dimitri is uncertain and also does not wish to know. 

Rufus for all his faults had known his place and was largely content with it. He had, like most of the court, adored Dimitri’s mother and was notably kind to Patricia. Before the Tragedy, Dimitri remembers his uncle had fond relationships with a few different court ladies, but a match was never made. Dilution of the bloodline, Dimitri was brought to understand early on, was very frowned upon, especially for their House. 

“There are those,” Rufus once explained in one of the only non-financial conversations he and Dimitri had after the Tragedy, “who have argued that our House is closer to the Goddess. They would call Her ‘Sothis’, and our blood is closer to hers than those Houses which dilute themselves by marrying outside of Her descendants.” 

“I can never tell if he actually believes that bullshit,” Dimitri said to Dedue later after he punched through a few sacks for brawling practice, “or if he’s trying to rile me up enough to rip his skull from his filthy craven neck!” 

Dedue didn’t say anything. He simply put another sack in front of Dimitri and pointed at it. Dimitri only realised the violence of his words two further sacks later. Dedue took him back to his rooms at that point and made him drink a cup of chamomile tea. Dimitri was not yet sated enough for the tea to have much effect, but they had run out of sacks. 

“He is Regent,” Dedue said after Dimitri cracked his teacup, “but you are the rightful heir and the Head of your House. If you wish him to not speak –” 

“I wish to cut out his tongue and feed it to him!” Dimitri snarled, shooting to his feet to tear at his shirt collar because it felt too tight. “Cursed. All of this blood and Crest talk— _damn it all_ –”

Only Dedue could put up with him in these wild states, especially back then. Dimitri ranted and raged, unable to hold back his barks at the ghosts. Dedue helped him either beat it out of himself in the training hall or rage in the privacy of his rooms. Dimitri’s sixteen and Dedue’s seventeenth year whittled by like this, Dimitri’s moods further exacerbated as his body morphed from the gangliness of adolescence towards manhood. 

He hated every moment of it, but not for the reasons adults around him thought. Rodrigue reassured him that growing pains in his bones would pass, and Cordelia faked kindness to assure him his clumsiness was only the event of rapid growth. Dimitri grit his teeth and did not scream at their soothing. He thanked them politely and did not roll his eyes when they also reassured him his voice would settle soon. 

He was not about to tell them he simply did not like his body. Sylvain and Dedue were still bigger than him, but Dimitri hated his new height and the broadening of his shoulders. He hated that his hair texture thickened and got into his face at shoulder length, and he hated even more the horror of nearly everyone when he chopped it short after being forbidden to braid it. He didn’t care for court or season fashion, and he cared even less for what cuts of trousers showed his virility best. 

“You will begin courting soon,” Rodrigue said, somehow roped into speaking to Dimitri about his campaign against fashionable clothes, “and it is proper to have presentable clothing.”

But Dimitri then did not want to court. He didn’t want anything to do with the continuance of his blood nor this ridiculous aspect of his chivalric duty. All he wanted was to have the ghosts’ revenge and never look at the body he was quickly coming not to recognise in the mirror ever again. 

Of course, no one understood. Dimitri was dedicated to holding his tongue. His body had begun to remind everyone of his father, and this pleased them. It pleased Rodrigue and the Margrave Gautier especially, and Dimitri hoped that they would be kinder to Felix and Sylvain if he kept his tongue. He chose cuts that were perhaps out of date but in pleasing resemblance to the old portraits of his father, and soon the brief concerns of the court tapered off into mild nostalgic praise. Dimitri shuddered when dressing and stuffed his ears with the ghostly taunting. 

Dedue was the only person who had any inclination to this. He did not approve, but he was kind and offered silent sympathy when Dimitri couldn’t lie to the tailors well enough to make them feel appreciated. He frowned over Dimitri’s refusals to heal new scars incurred from skirmishes, but he did not bring a healer. He sat and helped Dimitri apply ointments and bandages and did not comment on how often he flinched. 

It was only years later when they were in Almyra that Dedue finally asked: 

“Is this better, Your Highness?”

Marie and Dedue were dressing him for a lunchtime meal with Marie’s ladies in waiting. The clothes were casual and loose for summer was beating down upon them, and the air even this early in the morning was sweltering. Dimitri held still, aware that they were dressing him for their and company’s pleasure rather than the other way around. 

“You are not fond of Kingdom fashion?” Marie asked when Dimitri did not immediately respond, mild and curious. “I do not blame you. It is very constricting.” 

“Yes,” Dimitri said, barely managed and did not speak more. 

He suspected, however, that Dedue spoke to Marie regarding clothing after that. Aside from the dancing clothes Dedue and Marie adored teasing him into, they kept him covered even in summer. Even during training and riding to skirmishes to the amusement of the King, Dimitri spent most of his time in Almyra hidden from view through their careful dressing. Their work disguised not only his unusual complexion but the form of his body, only his Crest possibly giving him away when he slipped into battle madness. 

No one survived his battle madness in Almyra. That was the King’s greatest joy, and one of the few points that Dimitri felt he could offer his service reliably. He would rather fight than dance, although both roles were at the King’s command.

Dimitri will never tell Claude this. 

Selfishly, he did come to enjoy the anonymity. He was kept by Claude’s will, which was secret. To the Almyran court, he was a tool for the King’s enjoyment. A pretty beast, who could dance as well as slaughter a hundred soldiers without breaking a sweat. His courting chain was a source of curiosity and gossip, and coins constantly changed hands as people bet upon whom he belonged. 

“It is amusing, isn’t it?” the King said towards the end of Dimitri’s time in Almyra. “That they even think you mine when my lady wife is the one who plays with you and your retainer the most.” 

They were alone in the King’s study. It faced away from both the rising and setting sun and was always a little cooler than the rest of the palace. Dimitri sat on the window seat with a roll of wyvern breeding records as the King thumbed through a shipping inventory. 

“I do not find it amusing,” Dimitri said, and he did not hide his poorly managed rage; it would be pointless. “They insult Claude.” 

“My son is used to their insults,” the King said, a little cruel but also proud. “He knows well that he is better than their measure. After all, look at you: a fine warrior and king in your own right.” 

Dimitri opened his mouth. The King looked up from the inventory. His smile, missing a tooth from a long ago battle, pulled into a wide smile. They did not speak further. Dimitri bowed his head and continued his calculations in the humid silence.

As they boarded the first ship to travel via Sreng back to Fodlan, the King stepped from Marie’s side. He drew back his cape. Clasped the pommel of his sword and twisted. 

“Claude was always meant for more than Kingship,” the King of Almyra said as he grasped Dimitri’s wrist and twisted until Dimitri allowed his hand to be turned. “Let this guide you both towards a brighter world.” 

Back on the Goddess Tower:

Dimitri and Claude wished for a world where they would not change towards each other. 

They couldn’t stop the world from changing around them. 

The Emblem of Almyra lay upon Dimitri’s palm. 

It sparked in the noonday sun.


	5. Chapter 5

**0.**

Dimitri is by the fishing pond in Garreg Mach. 

The weather, as always, is mild. He is wearing the Officer’s Academy uniform, but he is also in the body of his thirteen-year-old self. Just before the Tragedy. His back does not have the phantom itching of his scars. The uniform sits easily there as it never did when he was attending the academy. 

This is a dream.

Dimitri is a lucid dreamer. Nightmares and terrors are his norm when he sleeps well enough to have them, so the even rarer times that he does dream are extraordinary enough he almost always becomes aware. Like most of his dreams, the surroundings are blurred out, and he has the impression that there are other things. Other people and animals possibly. He cannot see nor hear them.

This is how he always knows it’s a dream. 

There is a prickling at the back of his neck. 

“Dimitri?” 

He turns. 

The dragon is sitting where the bait stall should be. Its scales glint in the mild sunlight. The air is still but not heavy or stale. Dimitri watches as the dragon shifts, lowering its great head and neck to look upon him at the edge of the pier. 

It inhales.

“Ah, so it is,” it says, turning its head so that it may better see him out of its right eye; Dimitri sees that it has turned blue. “Did you know you are wandering?”

“Wandering?” Dimitri asks.

His voice is so high and young it startles him. He has never spoken in his dreams, except to scream or cry. The dragon blinks, multiple lids sliding back and forth in opposite directions. 

“I see,” it says, faintly annoyed.

It shifts. Shrinking. Its flesh warps and bubbles as the dragon folds its wings into its back, condensing its great bulk and long claws. When it is finished, it looks much like it did when Dimitri accepted its offer for a trade at the mouth of the great cave. Smaller, like a balding human with reptilian skin and a dragon’s face.

The only parts that are different are the dragon’s eyes. One is milky, perhaps once green and now blind. The other is Dimitri’s and as bright blue as it ever could be. They both consider Dimitri with a mild, unjudging narrowness. 

“It is a shame my relatives do not like to teach humans anymore,” the dragon says as they walk onto the pier to stand within an arm’s length of Dimitri. “I don’t like to add to their mistakes, so for that I am sorry. I was desperate and made a trade you didn’t fully understand.” 

“What?” Dimitri asks. 

The dragon looks at him. From the top of his head down to his toes. It lifts its eyes to Dimitri’s face and frowns. 

“You are a whelp,” the dragon says.

Dimitri frowns back. “This is not my body anymore,” he says. 

“But it was,” the dragon points out, frowning deeper, “and when you wander, you look as you should.” 

“I am not a child,” Dimitri says, feeling offended without understanding why. 

“No,” the dragon says, very softly, “you are not.” 

**vi.**

Dimitri wakes up.

Gloucester mornings are mild. The sun is peeking over the horizon, and Claude’s head is shoved up under his left arm. Claude sleeps in his usual curled position, moved as close as he can towards the headboard. His hand, which usually tangles in Dimitri’s hair during sleep, rests slack against the side of his head. 

They smell like their activities the night before. 

Carefully, Dimitri shifts. Lifts his arm higher to get off of Claude’s hair and feels the stretch of Edelgard’s wound. He sits up in a slow, steady motion. Claude’s face screws up. He shifts slightly, drawing his arms back towards himself. Dimitri lowers his arms, legs straightening slightly. Claude opens his eyes blearily. 

“Dima,” he says, looking up with the corners of his eyes crusted. “It’s so early.” 

Dimitri smiles. He reaches out. Uses the pad of his thumb to clean the sleep from the side of Claude’s right eye. This gets a surprised jerk of Claude’s head. He reaches up instinctively and rubs his eye as Dimitri brushes his thumb against his fingers. 

“Good morning, Claude,” Dimitri says. 

“Ugh,” Claude says, covering his eyes very dramatically. 

Dimitri smiles. He leans down and presses a kiss to the knob of Claude’s elbow, which earns him a huff. He shifts, swinging his legs out from under the covers and over the left side of the bed. He learns Claude roll over as he stands up, looking around for his eye covering. 

“Where’re you going?” 

“Stables,” Dimitri says, bending down to pick up the small patch of cloth along with his now useless court hose. “I must tend Lucia.”

Claude inhales. Dimitri stands up and looks to him. Claude blinks blearily at him, only half-awake. 

“Join me for breakfast,” he says before breaking himself off with a large yawn.

“Yes,” Dimitri says, and he cannot help but smile as Claude scrubs his eyes. “Go back to sleep.”

“‘Love you, Dima,” Claude mumbles before rolling onto his stomach and falling straight back asleep. 

Dimitri has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing. He tears his gaze away from Claude tangled in the bedclothes to go about collecting their clothing from the floor. It looks like he tore Claude’s under-mail, which makes him wince as the repair will not be cheap. They did not do any property damage, though, which is a relief. Dimitri doesn’t know how much further they may push Lorenz’s hospitality. 

It occurs to him right then that they left the dragon dagger in Lorenz’s room. Dimitri, still naked, stands for a moment with his arms full of dirty and torn clothing and feels extraordinarily embarrassed. 

_As you should,_ Stepmother murmurs.

“Yes,” Dimitri says aloud before he can catch himself. 

He glances immediately at Claude. Watches as Claude exhales. Inhales. His face is slack and mouth slightly open. He sleeps on. 

Dimitri breathes out. 

He passes behind the privacy screen, dropping his armful of clothes into the basket. There is clothing set out that will fit both him and Claude. Dimitri’s clothes were likely by Felix, and Claude has kept clothes in House Gloucester since wintering at the beginning of the war. Dimitri gets dressed looking down, keeping the mirror on his blind side. He adjusts the courting chain to sit atop his collar, centering the Emblem of Almyra as he steps out from behind the screen. 

He looks back to the bed. Claude’s mouth is open enough now that a bit of drool is collecting at the side. He breathes deeply, just audible in the early morning quiet. Dimitri is momentarily tempted to get back in bed with him. Wipe his mouth and curl themselves together. 

Dimitri breathes in. He resists the urge to cover his own ears as he moves to the door into the hall. Pushes it open. It is dim and empty as Dimitri shuts the guest room door behind himself and moves towards the western doors, which are the closest to the stables. There are a couple of house staff cleaning the windows in the entrance hall, and they stop what they are doing to greet him and lift the heavy door bolts. He feels faintly like he should have done that himself. He is stronger than several of them combined.

“Thank you,” Dimitri says instead because he knows better than to insult the hospitality of House Gloucester intentionally. 

The weather is cool. Nowhere near the refreshing chill of Fhirdiad but enough that Dimitri feels himself draw up. Inhale deeply. He moves towards the stables, feeling fresher than before as he watches the bustle of the House. A cart of egg laying chickens passes him towards the gate, heading to market. Dimitri stares after them momentarily, marveling at their healthy plumage and clear eyes. He has to suppress the urge, deeply ingrained from the war, to chase the keeper and ask their price. 

When Dedue and Annette finally managed to buy egg-laying chickens in Charon, three months after Dedue and Dimitri arrived from Almyra, Dimitri nearly cried. They paid an obscene price for four scraggly hens, but after a bit of feed, they gave them small speckled eggs with almost orange yolks. Dimitri did cry then, unreasonably emotional as Annette, whose entire body was mottled by the burns at the School of Sorcery, sang happy praise to the chickens. Mercedes and her now keep chickens in their modest house in the southern outskirts of Fhirdiad, all of them descendants from those first four, beloved animals. They make sweets with the yolks and tinctures from the whites. 

These are the thoughts occupying Dimitri’s head as he comes to the stables. The master is not yet up, but the hands know exactly where to point Dimitri. As he moves down the wide hall, Dimitri can hear Ferdinand’s voice, clear as it usually is but also very waspish. 

“– me do?” he is saying as Dimitri stops and sees that Ferdinand is standing with his back to the door and watching his mare, Michelle, chopping her feed; there isn’t anyone else in the stall with him. “People don’t talk if they don’t want to, and even less when they are conflicted –”

Usually, Dimitri would slink on, but this sounds like something that he should probably step in on considering what Ferdinand does for him and Claude. He breathes in.

“Ferdinand?”

Ferdinand’s head whips around. Dimitri is hyper-aware of the smell of magic charging the air. It isn’t entirely surprising. None of them like to be startled, especially after all that has come. 

But the magic does not smell familiar. 

“Dimitri King,” Ferdinand says, and he turns, his magic fading before Dimitri can discern what the difference was. “Good morning. Are you here for Lucia?” 

_Stupid boy_

“Yes,” Dimitri says, and his voice is a little choked; he clears his throat. “I know she in the end stall. Are you well?” 

Ferdinand smiles, more than a little dry. He waves a hand, which doesn’t disturb Michelle from her pursuit of breakfast at all. He does look better than the night before, although that is not a high bar to set. 

“I slept better than I have been,” he says, which is both an answer and not; Dimitri resolvedly does not ask if Lorenz was with him. “As you may have guessed from my, ah, venting, I do have business I’ll need to discuss with you and Claude at some point, but –”

“We can discuss it while I tend Lucia,” Dimitri says because he senses this might be something he should devise to soften for Claude, “if you are finished here.” 

“Oh, yes,” Ferdinand says, clearly following Dimitri’s train of thought as he moves to climb over the stall door, “I am glad to have the chance to discuss this early.” 

They walk together to the end stall. Lucia is in the process of cleaning her scales and looks up to Dimitri as he climbs over the stall door. She swivels her head, inspecting his sides for the scent of treats that he doesn’t have and snorting in disappointment. She loses interest in Dimitri then, looking up to Ferdinand who has fished a piece of jerky out of his back pocket. It makes Dimitri snort as he watches Ferdinand climb into the stall, the jerky held out to Lucia’s open, patient mouth.

“Were you planning to visit her?” 

Ferdinand smiles, a brighter look than Dimitri has seen in a while, as Lucia happily accepts and swallows the jerky dropped into his mouth. He reaches down to adjust his right trouser leg slightly; Dimitri realises they are somewhat ill-fitting. 

“I want to learn more about wyverns,” Ferdinand says as he straightens and watches Dimitri move to inspect the undersides of Lucia’s wings. “I’m guessing we will be looking to do crossbreeding with the troops from Almyra in the next breeding cycle, so it would be good if I had some handle on them.”

Dimitri hums his agreement as he considers a slightly dull patch to Lucia’s wing likely due to change in temperature. He passes around her to grab a bottle of oil. 

“What sort of market would we be looking to sell to?” 

“Brigid is interested in buying,” Ferdinand says and Dimitri hears him telegraphing his steps as he moves to sit by the stall door that faces outside. “Petra wrote me to mention that there is a chance Dagda may also become interested as there was apparently been a horse plague.”

“Horse plague?” Dimitri asks, looking over his shoulder in alarm as he dabs oil to Lucia’s wing.

“Confined to Dagda for the moment,” Ferdinand responds as he sits and behinds to properly adjust his stays under his trousers; they’re far too large for him. “But we should probably try to put a hold on general cattle and cavalry trade from there.” 

Dimitri grimaces. That is not the news he wanted to hear, since Dadga is only beginning to look like a possible trade partner. He hopes that Petra and her grandfather are not tempted to invade it in the interim. He applies the oil to Lucia’s wing, mulling over the bleak possibility of Brigid and Dadga embroiled in a war of conquest while Fodlan attempts to rebuild. 

There are cases of the plague rising in the southern parts of Adrestia, too. Dimitri knows that it is likely to spread quickly after a certain point, and it is already a concern that his coronation will be affected with people traveling to Fhirdiad. It is yet another trouble to consider atop of the continued threat of Those Who Slither in the Dark and general security concerns. 

“Petra has responded she will attend the coronation next month,” Dimitri says, moving in to inspect Lucia’s other wing. “I trust we may learn more from her then.” 

“Yes,” Ferdinand agrees before he breathes out audibly. “But this isn’t what I wanted to discuss, exactly. It has to do with Claude. Also Dorothea and Linhardt.” 

_Ah_

Dimitri skims over Lucia’s right wing, finds there are no pressing issues, and walks back around to give Ferdinand his full attention. Ferdinand looks at him with a thin, bruised expression. 

There is a sinking feeling in Dimitri’s gut.

“What about Claude?”

“You realise,” Ferdinand says, and he sounds like he has been ill with this for a long time, “the fact that Claude was born east of the Throat will cause some to claim he was not born in the embrace of the Goddess?”

Dimitri looks to him. Ferdinand sits with his head resting against the frame of the stall door. He looks up at the sky. 

It stirs a memory that makes Dimitri’s mouth run dry.

“We may know the truth of the Church and Those Who Slither in the Dark thanks to the mages and the notes Hubert and Edelgard left in Enbarr,” Ferdinand says, and Dimitri thinks of how he used to kneel regularly in penance, “but many people are still faithful. We cannot risk the power vacuum of a collapsed Church.”

Dimitri’s stomach feels like a hole. “If we tell them the truth –”

Ferdinand lips twitch into a tilted smile that is humoured but also exasperated. “Lorenz still has faith in the Goddess, and I live with him.”

Dimitri eyes him. Ferdinand’s head turns away. He stares up at the sky in a way with which Dimitri is uncomfortably familiar. He wonders if Ferdinand also hears voices from the past or if the things that changed him remain stagnant in memory. 

There is also a chance that Ferdinand was always like this. 

Dimitri isn’t sure which possibility is worse. 

“I have been thinking,” Ferdinand says, still watching the sky, “about Linhardt’s situation. I have not received anything further from him. Have you?”

“No,” Dimitri says, thinking about Linhardt’s rambling confessions and poor calligraphy. “Claude sent our response a little over a week ago. He would have said if he’d received a response.”

Ferdinand nods. He straightens himself, turning his head. Dimitri doesn’t like the look in his eyes. 

“In his message, he mentioned assisting in Crest blood experiments,” Ferdinand says, shifting his legs to set both of his feet flat on the ground; the odd light in his eyes doesn’t calm. “I know Linhardt. He has great resolve. He would not have assisted in those experiments if the participants were unwilling.

“Admittedly, what I know is secondhand and what Hubert… When I killed him, much of Hubert’s flesh was already dead. I don’t think he had much time left, and that is why he left Edelgard’s side to face us in the city. If I…” 

Ferdinand’s face screws up. He makes a vague motion with his left hand at his right shoulder. He looks vaguely angry at himself before he shakes his head and drops his left hand back to his lap. 

“Anyways,” he says, rallying himself, “with what Edelgard made herself into, I am certain there were others who took on the experiments. Linhardt may have worked on her and maybe Hubert; it’s hard to imagine this is something they could do themselves on their own. Dorothea may know some information, and I spoke to her a couple days ago, but she has not been willing to talk. As she doesn’t have a crest, I don’t think she or Caspar similarly could have been a test subject. Bernadetta is dead—Isabella just confirmed the House Varley is empty—and I don’t believe they would have asked that of her.”

Dimitri breathes out. “Do you think Linhardt used his own body?”

Ferdinand nods. “So it could be that Linhardt is unable to travel. Or that he needs extensive preparations he may not be able to afford. The guilds in Derdriu have received recent applicants who used coin marked from the treasuries of House Varley and Hevring to pay their entry.”

Dimitri grimaces. Ferdinand’s lips twitch again on that humourless smile. Dimitri does not say it would help them so much if Dorothea would talk. He does not want to stoop so low, and he knows that he would probably have the most disastrous effect in her situation. That is, if possible, an avenue he would like to avoid if he is able. 

“We could,” Dimitri hazards, “ask Hanneman.” 

Ferdinand’s entire face does something extremely complicated. Dimitri is aware from Claude and a passing comment from Sylvain in a discussion about Crest beasts that Ferdinand has personal opinions regarding Hanneman. From what Dimitri has gathered, it has to do with whatever happened to Manuela during the war. It isn’t a topic Ferdinand has needed to fill Dimitri in on, and Claude does not think it is his place to share the circumstances. 

“We could,” Ferdinand acquiesces, unable to keep the contempt out of his voice “He has not left Enbarr.” 

“I think Felix would be a good choice to make contact,” Dimitri says because he faintly fears if he leaves it to Ferdinand, he will go personally; he trusts Ferdinand not to cause unnecessary drama, but then they would all have to deal with Lorenz. “He is becoming antsy.” 

“That is a good choice,” Ferdinand says, looking a little relieved; his expression eases as a small, amused smile comes over his face. “How is Felix? I heard he arrived soon after I retired for the night.” 

Dimitri smiles back, although the expression feels a little odd on his face. “I believe Felix is as well as may be expected,” he says, and the smile becomes easier because that is the truth. “He doesn’t like me asking personal questions any more than before, but I know Ingrid and Sylvain have been helping him sort his House.”

Ferdinand’s smile broadens. He sits up fully, reaching up to push some of his hair out of his face. Up at the top of the stable hall, the voice of the stablemaster filters down. The day is starting to fully dawn. 

“Lorenz likely wants us all for breakfast,” Ferdinand says, and he stands up, twisting a lock of hair that would have fallen into his eyes behind his ear. “I am not certain if the Countess will be up to company, but the Count will want to make an appearance.”

Dimitri nods. He reaches out and pats Lucia’s head where she’s curled back up to snooze after eating. It stirs faint amusement in his chest. Since they are no longer hiding away in Garreg Mach, she has taken to being spoiled without any ounce of shame. At the same time, she still has not shown signs of her first heat, which should have come a year or so ago. Dimitri has only had time to worry about that recently. 

“Dimitri,” Ferdinand starts and stops.

He looks up. Ferdinand is standing at the gate. The light is mild with the sun still in the east. Dimitri watches his jaw clench. Unclench. 

“The dagger,” he says, low and careful and hesitant. “The pegasus hide.” 

In a different world, they would have a time and place to discuss difficult things. They would be able to let their weight lie. It wouldn’t have to be constantly rushed within the tiny pockets of privacy they are able to cut out of what little time they have. 

When Ferdinand opens his mouth, Dimitri knows they have come to an end. 

“When,” and Ferdinand’s eyes move, out of the stables and then back into the hall before returning to keep Dimitri’s gaze, “I… my mother…”

He sighs, eyes moving skyward in frustration. He breathes in deeply, looking back to Dimitri with an expression of great resolve.

“I bear a pegasus mark,” he says, lacking any finesse except what he uses to push out the words. “I also bear a minor Crest of Cichol, but the Word of the Goddess has always been closed to me. Last night, when you told us how you obtained the dagger—I came to understand something I have wondered about for a very long time: 

“This body is meant to serve a different power, and it is earthly and not divine.” 

During the war, Dimitri is aware that everyone changed. He understands better than some others, although he often wishes he did not. It is part of who he has been bred to be: a King first, a person second. 

He knows that Claude and many other Alliance allies always intended to survive the war. The noble families did not throw down the gauntlet because joining the war outright did not serve any of their ends. Raphael, Ignatz, and Leonie could not move as they pleased, but as merchants and a sell-sword, they did have choices with whom they did business. Claude’s hands were additionally tied with Dimitri and Dedue east of the Throat. There were too many risks to doing more than what they could do. 

It set those of Adrestia who did not follow Edelgard in a precarious position. Linhardt never swore loyalty, but he also did not leave his House. For each deed he did for the Kingdom and Alliance, he did service for Edelgard twicefold. The cheerful, bombastic Ferdinand from those short academy days is gone. Dimitri is not aware of the exact circumstances behind the razing of Aegir, but, in a terrible way, they do not matter. It brought Ferdinand to Gloucester where he offered himself to become their spymaster. Between efforts of Linhardt and Ferdinand, the war may have been a little shorter. 

Victory is built upon bodies. 

Dimitri has always known this. When he was a small child, he used to watch the plague dead rattling by on the carts, headed out of the city walls to be burnt. The School of Sorcery produced the physicians and the morticians who cared for the ill and dead. Lambert took him to the walls and pointed out the mass pyres. As the sole scion of House Blaiddyd, Dimitri could not be naïve. He could be mild, even gentle or trusting, but naïvity had to be stamped out of him from the start. 

Death comes to all. The House Blaiddyd were northern wolf lords, descending a thousand years back from the mountains bordering Fodlan from Sreng. Before they carried crests, they wielded great pole-arms and rode upon furred horses that may have been themselves wolves once. The power of the Goddess was never meant to define them in the same manner as other crest-bearers. These are things that Dimitri was taught alongside Felix, Sylvain, and Ingrid at Lambert and Rodrigue’s feet. 

“That is why the House Blaiddyd must hold a command seat,” Rodrigue said as Lambert carefully rolled up the ancestral scroll. “Blaiddyd blood has power that precedes the Goddess herself, and it is our duty to keep that blood.” 

Rodrigue never lost his faith in this. In his own way, neither has Felix. Dimitri is aware that Felix does not care about the Goddess, even if he is friendly in his own way towards Byleth, Seteth, and Flayn. The House Fraldarius never waved in its defense of Dimitri, and Rodrigue made off with not only the signet ring and Areadbhar but also Lambert’s personal armour when he escaped Fhirdiad and buckled down for four and a half years in his House. Felix answered Dedue and Byleth’s call to Garreg Mach with what his father had saved, but Rodrigue could not leave his House until it was time for it to empty. 

“We saved your House accounts,” Felix explained after Dimitri accepted Areadbhar in its wolf-pelt wrapping. “He will destroy our House to protect that if he must.” 

“Then,” Dimitri said, and he felt like he was beneath a thousand leagues of water, “I must not let it come to that.” 

He did not realise it in the moment, but that response changed Felix. He didn’t give Dimitri any indication then, and the change was small enough that it took Dimitri a while to notice how the anger Felix had always shown him since their maiden battle was no longer there. Felix was often angry and eager to lash out during the war, but it bore none of the animosity as their previous interactions had. 

The change had other consequences. Felix sat at the war table, but he also elected to spend more time around Dimitri than he had in years. Dimitri knows that he slipped badly between his moods during that year before Byleth emerged like a solid ghost, and Felix was there as much as Dedue. Standing watch or pulling him back from an edge over and over until Dimitri expected Felix to be there and not just Dedue. 

When Rodrigue joined them in the Ailell, he was surprised. Not so much by Dimitri, who he looked upon and seemed to accept as changed, but by Felix. Dimitri isn’t entirely sure, but he suspects they had a fight later back at the monastery. They did not speak much to each other and held their tongues regarding points of disagreement at war council. Dimitri, struggling to keep his attention on the present and not on his concern for Claude or rage towards Edelgard, found the strain to their relationship so disheartening he began consider crying like Annette and Ashe sometimes did to relieve tension. 

It didn’t come to that, but Dimitri wishes it did. 

Rodrigue died as he lived: honourably.

Dimitri had known that, in his youth, Rodrigue had loved show jumping. Glenn had an interest in it as well, and they had just begun to teach Sylvain before the Tragedy. Rodrigue had an old hip injury that had prevented him from doing it for tourneys, and he did not do it after Glenn died. It was one of the few pieces of his private grief he let be known. 

But that did not mean he forgot. Dimitri jumping wyvern-back had brought a brightness to his eyes and a smile to his face. He did not admonish Dimitri as Felix did constantly for how it left him exposed. He pointed out, instead, that Dimitri needed a rider in both the air and on the ground in his extended blind spot. He was not as swift as some of the younger cavalry, but with Ingrid flying at Dimitri’s right, he was the perfect fit to ride below. 

Rodrigue fell as they made progress through Bergliez territory. There was an archer, keener eyed than most, positioned just between their advancing flanks in the brush. Rodrigue spotted her before anyone else but not before she had already let fly her arrow. He lept high enough to take the arrow to his belly. It tore up and pierced through diaphragm, lung, and heart. 

Dimitri threw his lance before he registered what had happened. The silver lance that Byleth had given him years before split the face of the archer, who was already reaching for another arrow. 

There was screaming. Not from Dimitri. Above him. Where Ingrid was flying. 

Rodrigue’s body was falling. 

Below, Sylvain broke formation to ride at breakneck speed. He caught Rodrigue’s body in a massive splatter of blood and fled on a pivot behind their lines. Dimitri will never forget the look of utter determination and terror on Sylvain’s face. 

Rodrigue was the closest he had to a father in their lost childhood days. 

Felix was not there because he had led the left frontal assault. When they brought him to his father’s body after the battle, he did not move. He looked upon the careful shroud and not his father’s face as Dimitri carried Rodrigue to him through the chaos of the war camp. This should have warned Dimitri, who had carried his father’s rotting skull for days and nights, but he was not able to stop Felix when his hands shot out and tore the cloth to expose his father’s ruined belly and rendered flesh.

“Felix,” Ingrid cried, alarmed. “Don’t –”

“Don’t lie,” Felix said, and he tried to take Rodrigue’s body from Dimitri’s hold, stumbling under the greater weight as Dimitri failed to react in time to stop him. “This is how he died. He would be so pleased –”

“Felix,” Dimitri said as he kept hold of Rodrigue’s legs and hips, “he is too heavy.”

“I won’t let you carry him alone!” Felix screamed, entire face wild and shocking Dimitri into stillness. “Let me carry him! He is my father, too!”

In the end, neither of them carried Rodrigue. Dedue, Ingrid, and Byleth wrestled the body from them, and Felix, incensed, could not decide who he needed to fight more so Dimitri swung at him and then took his blows until Sylvain, running at a pace no one had ever known him to have off horseback, barreled into Felix and threw him down onto the ground. Felix roared but did not strike as Sylvain blanketed him, and Dimitri took that as his cue to go with Ingrid and Byleth to start preserving Rodrigue’s body.

The fact of the matter is this:

Dimitri knew from an early age he has been born for Faerghus. He was born for the land and the people to live and die in their image. He could not live nor die as he pleased for the dreams and livelihood of those born upon Kingdom soil blossomed and bloomed in his flesh and blood.

“It would be easier,” Seteth said when Dimitri laid Rodrigue’s body in the cold cellar of Fort Merceus, “if you did not love as you do.”

It was only Dimitri, Seteth, and Flayn. Dimitri had carried the body, and they had cast pale magic to stop the flow of time on Rodrigue’s flesh. Felix was with Sylvain and wanted nothing to do with anyone else for the time being. 

“I wanted to speak to you,” Flayn started as Seteth began to stitch shut the new shroud in House Fraldarius colours. “About your eye.”

Dimitri, who was laying Rodrigue’s hands palms up to accept the Goddess’s embrace, stopped. Flayn looked at him. Her pupils were too oval.

“You traded it, didn’t you?” 

Seteth looks up from his work. His eyes are the same. 

Kneeling in the dirt, watching the dragon lick his blood from its palm, it had been silent. Peaceful, even. Dimitri had resigned himself to the possibility of death there, and perhaps that had been his saving grace. 

He understood the dragon. It did not ask for anything it did not already have. It was not greedy, and it was fair. 

“Yes,” Dimitri said.

Flayn did not breathe. Neither did Seteth.

Between them, Rodrigue lay empty and quiet.

“You and Ferdinand,” Flayn said, and her eyes peeled open, a dragon’s all-knowing stare, “carry marks gained honestly. Ferdinand has been given the open sky and freedom from clouds. And you:

“You walk protected by the dead.”


	6. Chapter 6

**vii.**

Breakfast, as it turns out, is a formal affair. The Count and Countess Gloucester are seated at the head of the table, Lorenz to their right and Felix, dressed properly in a long-sleeved doublet and wearing the smuggest expression, three seats to their left and closest to the door. 

Dimitri, as he arrives with Ferdinand, is taken aback by this. Not as much as Ferdinand, who looks like he has reached such a level of embarrassment that he could evaporate on the spot, but close. They both smell of the stables, and Dimitri probably somewhat worse. Their hair is unbound. Ferdinand’s clothes, which are ill-fitting but serviceable for working, are definitely not presentable for formal matters. Dimitri is suddenly extremely aware his hands stink of wyvern oil. 

“It is lovely to have a full breakfast table,” Countess Gloucester says, propped up by a couple of pillows in her wheeled chair, dressed in heavy winter clothing, and smiling as warmly as Dimitri has ever seen her.

“It is,” Lorenz says as Count Gloucester serenely cuts his wife’s serving of fried egg. “Please, Dimitri King, Duke Aegir, sit. Duke Riegan has just gone to fetch another pot for tea.” 

Felix smiles at Dimitri with completely undisguised glee. 

They have no choice. Dimitri moves to sit next to Felix, resolutely keeping as much of discomfort from his face as possible. Ferdinand moves around to the chair next to Lorenz, murmuring a question regarding the tea. Dimitri is distracted by the feeling of Countess Gloucester’s eyes on him. 

“Dimitri King,” she says when he meets her mild, dissecting gaze while her husband continues portioning her egg and toast, “do you take your tea dark in the morning or do you prefer to stick to herbals?” 

“I,” Dimitri starts, voice coming out a little rough; he clears his throat. “I usually take herbals.”

“Good,” the Countess says; Dimitri feels like he passed a test as she turns to Lorenz, who is clearly whispering something nagging to Ferdinand, “Lorenz, what are you doing? Pour His Highness tea.” 

“Oh!” Lorenz says, looking back to Dimitri and his mother with an expression of sincere contriteness. “Yes, my apologies. This pot is a chamomile lemon.”

“My current favourite,” the Countess says, the warm smile once again on her lips. 

Lorenz stands up. Picks up the pot. He makes his way around the table to fill Dimitri’s cup just as Claude comes back in with another tea tray, a member of the kitchen staff rolling in the breakfast trolley behind him. Claude raises an eyebrow at the activity of the table but wisely doesn’t make a comment as he moves to set the contents of the tray on the table. 

“Four-spice blend,” Claude says as he pours for Count Gloucester, who has just sat back in his chair. 

“A treat,” the Count says, approvingly. 

Felix eagerly accepts a cup of that as Lorenz moves back around to pour the herbal for Ferdinand, who looks calmer at the prospect of a hot cup of tea. Dimitri can’t help but think of how Byleth would absolutely adore this. The breakfast of fried eggs, toast, and fresh butter would be to the professor’s liking as well. 

“Byleth would love this,” Felix says, completely without Dimitri needing to say anything.

“The professor would,” Claude says, finally seating himself next to Dimitri with a short, approving laugh. 

Dimitri smiles and nods. “This smells very lovely,” he says, picking up his cup. “Thank you very much.” 

“It is very simple,” the Countess says, after taking a sip of tea with the help of the Count. “I should like to have shared some of our baker’s fantastic honey puffs, but our House doctor has told me and my husband we must go off them.” 

_This is wasted on you_ , Glenn snarls. 

Only years of practice allows Dimitri to avoid choking on his mouthful of toast and egg. 

“Perhaps another time,” Claude says, light and unaware.

Dimitri forcefully swallows his food. 

“Perhaps I can serve Claude and Dimitri some for afternoon tea when they will not tempt you, Mother,” Lorenz says, clearly attempting to console her; Ferdinand uses this rare moment of freedom to carefully return his untouched butter to the carafe and to take another piece of toast from the rack to sop up leftover yolk. “They do go well with four-spice.” 

Dimitri smartly shoves another large bite of egg and toast into his mouth as he nods to escape speaking any further. He can see Claude eyeing Ferdinand’s hasty work of his new toast with an expression of muted encouragement. Dimitri chews at a steady pace, also sensing this might be the only full meal they get to eat.

The dagger is still in Lorenz’s room. Felix hasn’t finished fighting him. Ferdinand and Dimitri need to talk to Claude about Linhardt and everything else. There might be time to eat, but Ferdinand seems to get put off of food fairly easily and Dimitri isn’t sure if he will be cognisant of food or drink to be aware of it at any given point. Dedue isn’t here, and he is the best at signaling Dimitri to mimic that sort of social awareness. 

“That is a good idea,” the Countess agrees before her attention drifts to Claude, who has just taken a mouthful of eggs. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Duke Riegan. How are you of late?”

“Oh, please just call me Claude,” Claude says after taking a moment of swallow his eggs; Dimitri watches the Count use the opportunity to feed his wife egg and toast. “I have been busy. We’ve ratified a trade agreement with Almyra, which you know has been a goal of mine for quite some time, and we are looking forward to Dimitri’s coronation. At the full moon of the Red Wolf Moon still, right?” 

Dimitri nods. He is careful to cut his toast lightly so not to scrape the plate. The Countess chews her food as Lorenz begins to eat his own, eyeing Ferdinand’s plate’s remaining eggs and mostly disappeared toast with an expression of faint confusion. 

“It is traditional for the House Blaiddyd to transition in the Red Wolf Moon,” Dimitri says, once again wishing he listened to Gustave’s last theological spiel; beside him, he senses Felix is thinking the same thing. “The Goddess smiles upon those who maintain traditional values.” 

“That She does,” the Count agrees as the Countess accepts another bite of breakfast. “I do not think I will be able to ride to Fhirdiad, but if you will have my son in my place, I hope you will consider the House Gloucester present.” 

“It is an honour to host House Gloucester,” Dimitri says as Felix shoves a huge piece of egg into his mouth to prevent his own reaction. “I consider Lorenz a friend.” 

“You are a benevolent soul,” the Countess says as Lorenz gives Dimitri a truly grateful smile. “I know my son is a difficult creature.” 

“Mother,” Lorenz says, turning pink. 

“You are,” the Countess says as Ferdinand rouses himself from his self-protective management of his breakfast to look over at the exchange with faint alarm. “Before your father is dead, you must learn to control your emotions better. Duke Aegir can’t mop up your tongue’s messes for the rest of your life, you know.” 

Lorenz flushes deeper. Ferdinand looks like he desires the grace of a higher power to smite him from existence. Dimitri is suddenly very aware that the only exits from this room are the door into the main hall and the wide decorative windows. Both Claude and Felix have gone still. The Count, however, seems completely unconcerned, eating a forkful of toast and egg dipped in butter with a serene expression. 

“Mother,” Lorenz says, very small.

“I am right,” the Countess says before she lifts her arm to lightly slap Lorenz’s right hand. “Eat your breakfast before it gets cold.” 

“Family life is such a joy,” the Count says, smiling warmly at Claude, who immediately rallies himself into a friendly smile to hide the faint panic in his eyes. “I hope everyone here may be as lucky as I count myself from the blessings of the Goddess.” 

“May the Goddess continue to bless you and your family,” Dimitri says because he knows that cue by heart. 

The Count looks to him with possibly the warmest expression he has ever offered in Dimitri’s presence. “Thank you, Dimitri King,” he says, inclining his head gratefully as the Countess smiles and Lorenz is able to return to his breakfast. 

Dimitri nods. Claude glances at him with a slightly raised eyebrow as Dimitri resolutely turns his attention back to his breakfast, aware that Ferdinand is looking at him with no small amount of relief. Felix meets his eye briefly with a knowing but faintly approving expression. Dimitri doesn’t need to explain to Felix it wasn’t a gift of reading the atmosphere but their shared upbringing seeped in Church teaching that got them out of that one. 

The rest of breakfast passes in light conversation. Claude asks after the cattle, which immediately gets the Count talking as he alternates between feeding himself and his wife. Lorenz finishes his breakfast and pours everyone more tea. Felix finishes the extra eggs left on the table, and the two remaining toast slices are divided between Dimitri and Claude. 

“I have,” the Count says as a couple members of the staff appear with a trolley to clear away the dishes, “some local business I must attend to, and I am entrusting my son with your stay. I assume you need a meeting room this morning?” 

“Ah,” Claude says, glancing at Dimitri who nods, “yes.”

“I will be sure to let you know if there is anything that needs your immediate attention, Father,” Lorenz says, standing as his father does to take the handles of the Countess’s chair.

“Behave yourself,” the Countess admonishes him as everyone else moves to stand, “for once in your life, Lorenz.” 

“Yes, Mother,” Lorenz says, completely cowed. 

Dimitri is very aware that he has nothing to help clue him how to react. He looks to Claude, who blinks and looks up at him with a questioning expression. He’s far too used to the Gloucester dynamic to feel uncomfortable. Dimitri shakes his head slightly. He’s saved from needing to address the slightly put off reaction this gains him by Ferdinand, who is straightening after leaning to kiss the Countess’s cheek on her and the Count’s way out. 

“Lorenz,” he says, “we need a closed room.” 

“Oh,” Lorenz says, eyebrows rising, “alright then.” 

They end up in Lorenz’s reception room again. It has been cleaned of the night before, although there is a distinct smell of what Dimitri recognises as spell nullification and cleansing in the air. The magic chest is still open, a set of alchemy scales disassembled atop the mage shawl Lorenz tried to make Ferdinand wear the day before. Ferdinand wrinkles his nose at the lingering smell of sulfur and moves to open one of the windows that face out towards the sun. 

Dimitri wasn’t aware that activating a House’s defenses necessitated cleansing. Then again, Lambert wasn’t alive by the time Dimitri would have needed to learn that. 

“Did something happen?” Felix asks Lorenz as Ferdinand puts the window prop in. 

“Just a bit of an overreaction,” Lorenz says with too bright a smile as Claude and Dimitri deliberately try not to make eye contact with Felix. 

“Right,” Felix says, clearly not fooled by any of them. 

“I will bring up tea,” Lorenz says after they are all inside and Felix has drifted to the same chair he sat in the night before. “If you do not mind, the same as at breakfast?”

“That would work well,” Claude says as Dimitri watches Ferdinand peer down into the courtyard. “Also, please don’t trouble yourself about the honey puffs. I don’t know if we will all be staying long enough for them to be ready.” 

Lorenz smiles, a very kind expression. “I thought not,” he says as Ferdinand draws back from the window with an unreadable expression, “but I would like some, so I will ask to have some made. If it happens we have time, we may enjoy them together.” 

“Oh, alright then,” Claude says as Lorenz goes back into the main hall.

The door closes. For a long moment, it’s quiet. Felix is the only one who has sat down. Claude stands at Dimitri’s side, looking suddenly very serious. Ferdinand eyes them all with the same unreadable expression. 

“So,” Claude says, looking between them all, “who wants to go first?” 

“I don’t have any business of my own to share,” Felix says as Ferdinand moves to seat himself in the same place he’d sat for dinner the night before. “I’m guessing we all know about the dragon dagger in…” He motions towards the closed bedroom door. “I guess that would be Lorenz’s bedroom.” 

They all nod. Claude moves to seat himself next to Ferdinand, which means that Dimitri ends up between him and Felix. There’s a chair between Ferdinand and Felix, which Dimitri assumes Lorenz will take when he gets back. It feels faintly farcical that they’re all forced to stand on propriety when they have all gone to war and murdered together. 

_You’re the worst of them,_ Glenn hisses. 

“Dimitri,” Ferdinand says, which forces him to refocus, “do we want to discuss the horse plague in Dadga or Linhardt first?” 

“Have we heard from Linhardt?” Claude asks, perking up.

“Horse plague?” Felix asks, quite sharp. 

“We haven’t heard from Linhardt,” Dimitri says after he clears his throat. “The horse plague is easier to explain. You said Petra indicated it’s only confined to Dadga for the moment?” 

Ferdinand nods. He folds his hands on the tabletop, more comfortable than he was at any time during breakfast. 

“She also indicated that they may be interested in purchasing beasts of burden in from us in the next breeding cycle, so long as the plague doesn’t spread.” 

“That is good news,” Claude says, leaning back slightly and drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. “We’ll have to see what our own markets are like, but it may be an opportunity to levy an export tariff if there’s a large enough demand.”

“And see how we fare over the winter,” Felix says, less enthusiastic. “Everything west of Remire is in bad shape, and with Gronder in the state it’s in, we’re very meager going into winter. Even if we have a good season, there’s no guaranteeing a good survival rate.” 

The main door opens. Lorenz pushes in a trolley of tea and a plate of flat bread. Ferdinand starts to rise to help him, but Lorenz waves him to sit back down. He shuts the door before beginning to set the table.

“What are we talking about?” he asks.

“House plague currently confined to Dadga and our breeding season prospects,” Ferdinand says as he helps pass around tea cups and saucers. 

“Cattle look to be alright, but horse breeding will be poor here in Gloucester,” Lorenz says as he places two pots of tea in the middle of the table. “Most of our stallions went to the war effort, and the majority of our mares are too young anyways. The pigs have been doing brilliantly, though, and I believe Marianne has had similarly positive outcomes.” 

“I might like to buy a few sows,” Felix says before he shakes his head slightly and continues with, “but I know my House as well as House Gautier and Galatea aren’t in a place to engage on a breeding program. I’m not sure Galatea even has breeding age horses at this point.” 

“And Gautier stock are not saleable most of the time,” Lorenz says as he set down the plate of flatbread. “They wouldn’t be good for Dadga weather either.” 

“No,” Felix agrees with a sigh. 

Dimitri suddenly wonders what House Gautier’s accounts look like. It is not his place, but that is the one House within the Kingdom he has little knowledge of their management and finances. He knows Sylvain traveled extensively during the war, and he was able to keep himself, his horse, and his gear in good condition, but Sylvain has always been remarkably self-sufficient. The cheese exports, which traditionally served as a large amount of the House’s income, had undoubtedly suffered during the war. There were none in the Almyran markets, which more than a few members of the court had bemoaned on a semi-regular basis. 

“Hey, boar,” Felix says, nudging Dimitri’s knee under the table. “Stop thinking about Sylvain’s accounts and pay attention.” 

Dimitri blinks. Ferdinand is looking at him with an expression of faint intrigue. Lorenz is pouring tea for Claude, his nose slightly wrinkled likely at Felix’s style of speaking. Claude smiles when Dimitri meets his gaze, openly amused. 

“Is that what you get up to,” he teases gently as Dimitri feels his face heating. “Mental maths?” 

“Among other things,” Felix mutters, none too quietly, before he sucks in a loud breath and barrels them forward with: “What’s up with Linhardt? Am I the only person in the dark about him? Did he do something?” 

“I know a bit,” Lorenz says, passing around Dimitri while leveling a disapproving frown at Felix as he begins to pour tea, “but that is by virtue of Duke Aegir’s work.”

“Ferdinand is right here,” Felix grouches, scowling back at Lorenz even though he accepts the tea; “Are we going to stand on ridiculous notions of propriety or actually speak straightforwardly and get things done?” 

“We will speak straightforwardly!” Ferdinand says hastily as Lorenz appears to consider dumping the teapot’s contents on Felix’s head. “I think we can move on from Dadga for the moment; Petra didn’t seem overly concerned.”

“Linhardt sent a letter,” Claude says, a careful and rather impressively seamless takeover of the conversation; Dimitri sees immediately how grateful Ferdinand is. “I left it in my office in Derdriu, but seeing it really isn’t particularly helpful. It is less of a letter and more of a –” and Claude grimaces as he waves his right hand limply back and forth; “Well, it’s like reading a confessional. He did quite a lot of human experimentation during the war.” 

Felix’s face screws up as does Lorenz’s as he starts circling with the herbal teapot. “Crest or…?” 

“Crests, yes, explicitly,” Claude says, and Dimitri feels suddenly very grateful that not only is Claude good with his words but that he is able to discuss such topics in a balanced tone. “He also mentioned other things he worked on with Hubert, Dorothea, and Edelgard—he is explicit about collaboration in that order. His writing is confusing. He doesn’t sound like he’s a good state of mind. I sent my response, offering him passage to Derdriu to discuss his situation, but he hasn’t responded. Has this changed?”

Ferdinand and Dimitri shake their heads. Claude frowns slightly at both of them, likely confirming his suspicions that they’ve been commiserating without him. Lorenz is pouring himself a cup of the herbal, clearly displeased with the entire situation. Felix, swallowing a mouthful of tea, places his cup back on the saucer with a low clink. 

“Dorothea is still being held here, isn’t she?” 

Both Lorenz and Ferdinand nod, although Lorenz’s gaze is already sliding towards Ferdinand as he finally sits down. 

“I spoke with her recently,” Ferdinand says, resolutely not looking at Lorenz. “She continues to be uncooperative, but I’m not concerned about her withholding information from us. Hubert and Edelgard left a great deal of information, and the mages in Enbarr continue to be cooperative.”

“I’m still working on decoding the majority of their notes,” Claude says, but it’s in a tone of agreement. “It is slow-going, though, since no one at our disposal is a dedicated Crest researcher; without that background knowledge, a lot of the details are useless. Linhardt would likely have the most practical knowledge of what it all means.” 

“So, we do need to talk to him,” Felix sighs, tapping his fore and middle fingers on the side of his saucer just lightly enough that it doesn’t rattle. “Or Hanneman? He’s still alive, right?”

“Yes,” Ferdinand says in a tone that fails to hide any of his irritation with this fact; Felix’s eyebrows nearly disappear in his hairline. “Dimitri and I were discussing sending someone to retrieve him.”

“Let me guess,” Felix says, picking up his teacup like it’s one of his swords, “my liege lord volunteered me because you clearly look like you’d like to use the opportunity to punch Old Snobby and Stuffy out.” 

Lorenz opens his mouth. 

“Yes,” Ferdinand says without missing a beat. 

Claude snorts, a very uncouth noise that is effective enough that most of the table looks over to him. “Alright,” he says, smiling lopsidedly like he’s watching a bunch of children having a very serious argument about naughts and crosses. “Thank you for volunteering yourself, Felix. Let’s not move on from Linhardt yet—do I need to send another letter or do we need to take more hands on measures?” 

Dimitri looks at Ferdinand, who looks at him. Lorenz is still watching Ferdinand with a pinched expression. 

_You sully everything you touch_

“Hands on,” Dimitri says before he has to cough to clear the strain from his tone; he picks up his teacup to mimic social decorum but doesn’t dare drink. “Ferdinand and I were discussing that he may have experimented on himself or allowed himself as a test subject. I don’t know if Edelgard could move from the throne room. Linhardt might be in a similar condition.”

“You mean,” Felix says as Dimitri carefully lifts his tea to his lips and resolutely looks nowhere else but the liquid and porcelain, “he might be a, a – whatever Edelgard was.”

Dimitri grunts and swallows a mouthful of tea. It’s not particularly polite, but it gets the point across without Dimitri attempting to talk over the hissing in his inner ear. He looks up from his tea to find Lorenz staring at him with a dark expression. 

“I wasn’t in Enbarr,” he says, and he sounds unsettlingly like his mother, “but I am aware that someone with in depth knowledge of magic would be needed to control something like that. Edelgard was always particularly talented with magic, which is probably why she could stand alone. Especially if what you’re implying is that Linhardt isn’t able to control his body.” 

Dimitri nods. Next to him, Claude sighs. When Dimitri looks to him, Claude is considering the table’s contents with more concentration than they deserve. 

“Well, we should talk to him sooner rather than later,” he says to the four-spice teapot. “Hevring is a full three day journey from here since we have to take the mountains. I’m not sure who would be best to send; Manuela would be optimal –”

“She would be willing,” Ferdinand says before he briefly pauses, shifting awkwardly. “Yes, she would be the best. She worked with Hanneman for a while, and Hubert initially trusted her before Hanneman got suspicious of the number of her letters.” 

“Is that why Hubert poisoned her?” Lorenz asks, very sharply.

“What,” Felix says.

Ferdinand looks at Lorenz with something that approaches anger except it contains too much pain. “Lorenz,” he says, very softly. 

“Well?” Lorenz asks, with equal weight and at full volume. 

“Hanneman poisoned her, not Hubert,” Ferdinand says, expression edging more towards anger before he deliberately looks away from Lorenz and takes a deep breath. “Linhardt expressed willingness to share more information, but he may need help in traveling. He seems to have emptied his House of staff based on some of the coin that’s been circulating recently.” 

“Wait,” Claude says, and he leans forward for the first time in the conversation, “when did Hubert coerce Hanneman to poison Manuela?” 

“During the third year of the war,” Lorenz says before Ferdinand is able to stop him.

“Yes, because she was communicating with me,” Ferdinand says, very level, and Dimitri distinctly feels like they’re treading into dangerous territory because he can feel the beginnings of frustration from Claude. “Hubert didn’t do anything without reason –”

“Ferdinand,” Lorenz says, an uncharacteristic quiet of his tone, “Hubert sent Nathaniel’s head back to you in a jar.” 

Ferdinand flinches. Looks down. Looks up. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. 

“I still believe he had a reason,” he says, impressively level for how much pain he appears to be in. “I do not think he would force Dorothea or Linhardt to do anything they didn’t consent to do.”

“That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t manipulate them into it,” Lorenz says, and he looks more than a little apologetic as Ferdinand stiffens, “nor that he didn’t take advantage of their positions. We all are aware Dorothea and Edelgard were likely lovers. And Linhardt loved Caspar. That was obvious even in our academy days.” 

It was. Dimitri readily admits that he was oblivious to a great deal back then, but even he knew that Caspar and Linhardt had been sweet on each other. Next to him, Felix shifts, obviously uncomfortable with the intensely personal turn the conversation has taken. He and Sylvain greatly prefer to keep their relationship under wraps. 

“Regardless,” Ferdinand says, and it’s a combination of rallying and possibly the most argumentative Dimitri has heard Ferdinand in years, “Linhardt and Dorothea participated in the Crest experiments. Linhardt would be our best bet to reaching Dorothea. If he can be brought to speak with her, we have to try.” 

“We do,” Claude says, although from the flatness of his words, he is very displeased with how the conversation has panned out; Dimitri reaches for his teacup, needing something to do with his hands. “I will write up a new letter to send with Manuela. Should anyone else be sent?” 

_Sacrificial lambs_

Dimitri nearly breaks his teacup. His Crest doesn’t activate, but he fumbles the tea all over his shirtsleeves and front of his doublet. It’s cooled enough, but Dimitri isn’t able to hold in the sharp curse as he hastily sets the cup down with a clatter. 

“What –” Claude starts, very surprised as Dimitri scoots his chair back to stand up. 

“Sorry,” Dimitri croaks, patting his hands on the sides of his doublet and extremely aware that both Lorenz and Ferdinand have stood up. “Clumsy –”

“Goddess, I wish you’d grow out of it,” Felix snipes before he hands up and grabs Dimitri’s wrist with a huge scowl and tugging him imperiously towards the main door. “Lucky I brought two changes of clothes. Come on. How does Dedue ever put up with you, I shudder to imagine –”

They make it into and down the hall back towards the eastern quarters before Dimitri has a sense to look back to see if they’re followed. They’re not. He turns his attention back to the side of Felix’s head. The clenched set of his jaw as he drags Dimitri would look normal to anyone they happen to pass. It’s only the frantic light to his eyes that gives Felix away. 

“Here,” Felix says, opening a door and shoving Dimitri inside.

Dimitri stumbles slightly. By the time he rights himself, Felix has already shut the door and is crossing over his saddle bags, which are all open next to the wardrobe. It is a good size guest bedroom, although it doesn’t have an attached reception room. Dimitri supposes it wouldn’t; Claude and Ferdinand already occupy what would traditionally be offered. 

They don’t speak as Felix offers Dimitri a fresh doublet and shirt from his pack. The cuffs of the shirt are lightly starched as Dimitri prefers, which means Felix likely grabbed this directly from Dimitri’s laundry. Felix picks up his dirty clothes from the night before as Dimitri changes, folding them to likely ready himself to hastily pack and head to Enbarr. 

There is no point in talking about details right now. They have to go back soon enough and get Hanneman’s address. Dimitri will head back to Fhirdiad and likely message Sylvain to take a trip by Fraldarius to check on Felix’s messages. 

The Red Wolf Moon is only a week away. There are only three weeks until Dimitri’s coronation. 

This is Dimitri’s only window of opportunity to remake House Blaiddyd. 

They are running out of time. 

Felix breathes out a long sigh. 

“You know,” Felix says, very softly as Dimitri ties the laces on his shirt, “I never thought I would be glad for Glenn to be dead, but at least he did not have to see all of this.” 

Dimitri sucks in a breath. 

He has never shared with Felix that he knows how Glenn died. There were many corpses, and when he came upon Glenn’s it was contorted, partially burnt and eaten by maggots and flies. But there was a spear that pinned him to the ground, the top of the shaft charred as it stuck out from his back. He would have still been alive, choking on his own blood and vomit as he burnt to death. 

It must have been an agonising death. Dimitri looked upon him, hugging Lambert’s head to his chest, and had no tears left to grieve. 

Rodrigue took the arrow just the same. 

He has taken so many people from Felix. 

There is never enough time to do things properly. 

Across from him, Felix’s eyes narrow. 

“Felix,” Dimitri says, and he knows there will be no going back, “would you stand for my family when Claude and I wed?” 

Felix’s face goes slack. He stares at Dimitri as if he has never seen him before. 

Perhaps he hasn’t. 

Slowly, Felix’s mouth opens. 

“Why me?” he asks, and it is plain and simple, openly earnest as Felix rarely is. “Why not Dedue? Or Gustave? Or Byleth, even? Byleth is the Archbishop.” 

Dimitri breathes in. Out. 

“Dedue will walk beside me in protection of my body,” he says because they long ago agreed it would be this way, “but I want you to stand for my family because you kept my House during the war and have been my unwavering voice of reason since we were babes.” 

Felix stares at him. There is no anger or annoyance in his gaze. 

For a moment, time melts and they are small again. 

He is about to cry. 

“Dimitri,” he says, and they do not move to console each other because they are no longer those children hugging at their father’s feet, “I will do it because Claude has brought you back to us all, but I beg you: don’t give yourself away again. Even for Claude. We all need you here as much as you are able to be.” 

Dimitri breathes in.

“I understand,” he says because he does. 

Felix asks no promises. 

They have no business making such things. 

Felix inclines his head. 

“Thank you for your trust in me, Your Highness.” 

He raises his gaze to Dimitri’s eye. He does not smile. He does not frown.

“Dimitri.” 

He looks reassured and so very calm. 

“I would be honoured to stand for your family.”


	7. Chapter 7

Dimitri departs House Gloucester directly after the meeting. Farewells after he and Felix return to find Claude and Lorenz deep in a discussion about land management that borders on an argument are short and awkward. Claude clearly wants to say more to Dimitri, but Lorenz isn’t about to let the discussion slide. Ferdinand manages to beg Lorenz into politeness but not retreat. 

“I am truly grateful for your hospitality,” Dimitri says as Lorenz, with Ferdinand’s hand on his elbow, calms. “But I left Fhirdiad in a hurry, and there are duties I must ahead to.”

“Of course,” Lorenz says, appropriately soothed; Ferdinand lifts his hand and sits back, looking exhausted. “Come then, I will walk you to the stables.” 

This dance of politeness is a common theme, and one that Dimitri despises. Felix stays because there is still business on the land management he needs to be informed on, but Dimitri needs to be back in Fhirdiad before nightfall. Claude worries when Dimitri flies in the dark, even though everyone is aware that Lucia, especially as an Almyran wyvern, has better vision at night than in the day. A part of Dimitri is still taken aback at how Claude has changed. His nonchalant disposition has been tempered for better and for worse. 

Lorenz comes to see Dimitri off. Unlike the group they left inside, Lorenz is in an overall mild mood. He helps Dimitri pack a light saddle bag with jerky and some fragrant baked tea sweets that Dimitri has never seen before. Dimitri takes a little bit of time to properly saddle Lucia, careful of the dry patch on her belly. Lorenz watches with interest from the stall door that faces the yard.

“Are Almyran wyverns more prone to dry skin?” he asks as Dimitri places a small oiled cloth over the patch before adjusting the strap.

“Lucia is particularly sensitive,” Dimitri says, looping the excess leather for a secure fit. “She was bred for speed and dexterity more than endurance.”

Lorenz makes a thoughtful noise as Dimitri straightens and wipes his hands on a rag. He moves around Lucia to unlatch the gate into the yard. Lorenz steps back, allowing them to exit. He crosses his arms in a relaxed stance as Dimitri swings himself up onto Lucia’s back. 

The number of times Dimitri has seen Lorenz like this may be counted on one hand. Dimitri is now certain that Ferdinand and Lorenz slept together the night before. Dimitri wonders, distantly hysterical, if Lorenz is like Felix, whose mood is notably improved by the frequency of sex. If so, it may benefit everyone if Lorenz has sex more often. He strikes Dimitri as a person who prefers a monogamous arrangement, though, and Ferdinand is understandably not likely to be in the mood very often. 

Dimitri has various rules that he has broken over the years, but he draws the line at interfering with other’s love lives. The war gets in the way of everyone’s lives and happiness. At the same time, Ferdinand’s workload is directly Dimitri and Claude’s fault. It won’t improve until they come up with a lasting peace, and therefore everyone must suffer Lorenz’s anxiety. 

These are the extraordinarily distracting thoughts Dimitri has as he forces himself to turn his gaze towards Lorenz. He earns a guileless, rather gentle smile.

Dimitri feels bluntly mortified. 

“I will make sure Claude behaves himself while he’s here,” Lorenz says reassuringly and utterly misinterpreting whatever Dimitri’s expression is. “And Ferdinand and I will see to the dagger, should Claude require anything further.” 

“Thank you,” Dimitri says, partially choked.

Lorenz shakes his head. The gentleness remains, although his smile shifts into something more rueful. His right hand’s fingers shift on his left bicep. An unconscious, self-soothing motion. 

“May the light of the Goddess guide you,” he says, very sincere.

“And you,” Dimitri says, more choked than before. 

Dimitri taps his heels against Lucia’s sides. She roars, lurches, and takes Dimitri into the air in less than a breath. Dimitri is high aloft before he blinks the first tears from his eye. 

He wonders when they will be able to stop saying such inadequate good-byes. 

**viii.**

In the old tales: 

Before the Goddess brought wisdom and light to the world, humans and beasts were one in the same. 

In memories now obscured by the fire of the Tragedy and the blood of war, Dimitri remembers laying on Lambert’s lap. He was very young then, still in the nursery that was unusually attached to his father’s own quarters. The close proximity is why Dimitri could hear how his father sometimes cried out in the middle of the night. Dimitri would rush to his father only to find him sitting up on the right of the bed, wiping tears from his face. 

“Dimitri,” Lambert would say, wretched, and take him in his arms to hold close. 

Dimitri knows that it was his mother Lambert cried for. He can no longer remember how he knows this, only that Lambert must have cried out her name or told him so. Dimitri remembers clearly that his father would hold him, and he would calm to have Dimitri close. 

This did not last, of course. Dimitri was not in nursery long. Once he was sure on his feet and could wield sword and lance, he was moved to his own quarters in the adjacent royal wing. He saw his father less as he had lessons and training, and his father had all the various duties of kingship. In the years that followed, he would lose most of his memories of those evenings where Lambert was a man rather than a kingly father. 

But Dimitri does remember one more detail of those evenings that, until he sat beside the dragon, he was certain he must have dreamed. 

Once, when Dimitri pushed open his father’s bedroom door, Lambert had an evening candle lit by his bedside. He lifted his tear-streaked face as Dimitri ran to him. Dimitri remembers with a terrible clarity how his father’s face was warped. His eyes were too wide and blue and unfamiliar. And for a moment, before Lambert blinked and he was the father Dimitri knew and loved again:

Dimitri saw a wolf.

This memory came back to Dimitri as the dragon began to eat his eye. Dimitri pressed the strange poultice it had given him over the right side of his face. He was shaking and had to lie against the dragon’s flank, which was understandable. It had breathed dragonfire into his eye socket to cauterise the wound. 

“I expected you to pass out,” the dragon said after it slurped the last of Dimitri’s eye from its palm. “Truly, humans are remarkable creatures. You look so fragile.” 

“I may not be fully human,” Dimitri said because he was addled by the pain and shock. “I was born from wolf lords in the tales before the Goddess.”

“The Goddess?” the dragon asked before snorting on a laugh. “Ah, is that what she decided to call that one? How silly…”

Dimitri couldn’t follow that, but the dragon didn’t seem particularly concerned with the lack of response. It licked at the palm of its hand, humming deep in its chest. It sounded very satisfied. 

“Perhaps that is why you taste so good,” the dragon mused, swiveling its head back and forth for no clear reason. “I have eaten some human flesh in my time, but I would say most of it is not worth the effort. It is difficult, eating sentient beasts.”

Dimitri comprehended that and also understood that it should be threatening, but he did not have the capacity to do anything but lie against the dragon. It hummed again, deep in its chest. The noise of a contented beast. 

“I am not going to eat you,” it said in a tone that was less magnanimous and more of it simply coming to a conclusion. “I will give you my fang as we agreed. You have been very polite, too, so I will give you some skin I recently shed. But later. You are still mostly human by your taste, and humans need a bizarre amount of rest.” 

“Oh,” Dimitri said, completely at a loss.

The dragon kept him awake for a while, making sure Dimitri hadn’t lost too much blood or was in a truly dangerous shape. It struck Dimitri much later that the dragon knew quite a lot about keeping a human alive. Then, he was simply grateful not to be alone.

“I am a dragon, not a monster,” it said when Dimitri, in his weakness, confessed this. “My wayward kinsfolk might have different ideas, but why should I be unkind when you have done me only kindness? Now drink your water and rest.”

Dimitri accepted the cup the dragon helped him hold and did as he was told. 

Byleth meets Dimitri when he lands back in House Blaiddyd’s stableyard. Lucia spots them before Dimitri, letting out a bright warbling call. That, more than Dimitri’s sight, lets him know who is greeting them. She has always been very fond of Byleth, more than she is towards anyone aside from Dimitri and Dedue. The professor, Dimitri thinks rather fondly, really does have a universal appeal. 

“Professor?” Dimitri asks, very surprised but more than happy to clasp Byleth’s hand in greeting; he also feels no need to hide his emotions from them. “When did you arrive? What business brings you to Fhirdiad?” 

“Hello to you, too, Dimitri,” Byleth says, bland but for the smile on their face; they don’t let go of his hand. “I have news that needs to be brought to you in person.” 

“Ah,” Dimitri says, and he grabs his pack from Lucia’s side before reaching out and curling his left hand’s fingers carefully around the meat of Byleth’s palm. “Yes, let us go inside.” 

“Thank you, and do not be concerned,” Byleth clarifies as they smile and let Dimitri lead them towards the southern doors. “We do not know if this is something to be concerned about.” 

Dimitri cannot help but smile back. Byleth’s smiles and the warmth of their skin never fail to amaze Dimitri, who remembers how odd and bland they once were. In the past year, Byleth has revealed many smiles, each reaching their eyes more than the last. There is, too, a secret smile that Byleth only offers Dedue, and Dimitri has had the privilege to see them share it. They don’t hide their joy in each other from him as he is aware they do from others. 

It makes Dimitri truly happy to see his friends in love. They are, he is coming to understand, all so different not only as individuals but between each other. 

It also makes Dimitri think about Claude. Of the strange and bizarre future that stretches out before them. Claude always looked to the future, even in their academy days. Dimitri is only beginning to understand that the future includes him as well. 

It is brilliant and terrifying, just like Claude himself. 

These are Dimitri’s thoughts as he brings Byleth to his current reception room. In its usual function, it is the consorts reception room and is the largest after the royal quarters themselves. During the war, it was used mainly for clothing and laundry storage. Like the attached bedroom Dimitri utilises, it suffered no notable damage. 

Byleth wouldn’t know all of this unless Dedue told them. The professor grew up as and is still, in many ways, a mercenary. Byleth has about as much an idea of the functions and running of a House as they do about how to be Archbishop, which is not very much idea at all. Dimitri is aware he thinks far more about House affairs than is likely necessary, but at least he isn’t driving his court mad in the way he suspects Byleth may be driving Seteth and Cyril mad. Flayn, in her sporadic letters to Dimitri, has alluded to such. 

The last letter had heavily implied that Seteth misses Dimitri. That is why he has not yet sent a response. He doesn’t know what to do with that information. 

“What news?” Dimitri asks as he lets go of Byleth’s hand to set his pack down on his desk chair. 

“Ah,” Byleth says, motioning back into the hall. “Let me go get it from Seteth.” 

Dimitri blinks. “Seteth is here?” 

“We flew,” Byleth says before disappearing into the hall at a swift clip. 

That does explain it. Byleth is a mediocre rider at best, and Dimitri is hard-pressed to think of more than a couple of times that he has seen them aloft. The professor doesn’t seem to be afraid of heights, but Dimitri supposes the simple preference to keep their feet on solid ground is something the professor and Dedue share in common. The ship to and from Almyra had tested Dedue’s loyalty to Dimitri in a way nothing else had. 

“I would be happy,” Dedue confessed as they transferred ships in a frigid port in Sreng on the way back to Fódlan, “to never go to sea again.” 

“Ah, really?” Dimitri sais because his lungs were full of cool sea air, and he felt wide awake and frankly quite good. “Well, then I will go instead. We would rendezvous back in port.”

Dedue laughed at him.

There are three sets of footsteps in the hallway. 

Dimitri catches himself reaching for his letter opener to use as a weapon and is not fully able to hide this reaction as Byleth, Dedue, and Gustave appear in the doorway. Byleth carries a full saddle bag. There is an awkward moment in which they stare at Dimitri’s hand, hovering over the knife. Dimitri stares at them, feeling oddly caught out. 

“Your Highness,” Gustave starts.

“Sorry,” Dimitri says and yanks his hand back to clench against his upper right thigh. “Please enter.” 

No one comments further. Dimitri sighs to himself, the momentary lapse sitting ill in his own stomach. He watches Byleth and Gustave move to set the bag on the reception table as Dedue joins him, a pace from his right elbow. They are divided by the desk chair. 

“We should have knocked,” Dedue says, bluntly rather than gently.

Dimitri sighs. He unclasps his hand from his thigh and reaches out to briefly touch his fingers to Dedue’s upper arm. It earns him a small, lopsided grin. They know each other better than they know themselves. 

“Ooff,” Byleth breathes, drawing both Dedue and Dimitri’s attention back to the table.

They pull from the saddle bag an extremely hefty package that is clearly a Great Book. It is wrapped in distinctive Church linens used for preservation and protection, which surprises Dimitri more than the size. He has never been entirely certain of how Byleth carries as much as they do, since even when they reappeared like a ghost a year ago, they had a plethora of supplies on them, much in mint condition. Byleth’s endless supplies are, Dimitri has had to make peace with, another mystery of the good professor, who is not able to explain themselves beyond the fact that they somehow exist. 

Dimitri can relate to that and to Byleth’s bizarre luck. He is very aware he has survived quite similarly, although with more reliance upon the mercy of others. 

“Seteth found this a couple nights ago while he was searching through a new box of Hubert’s items sent care of Hanneman from Enbarr,” Byleth explains as they set the package on the table. “Seteth came with me, too; he is currently in your library looking through a few additional texts.” 

“Oh,” Dimitri says, approaching the table as Dedue moves back to Byleth’s side; Gustave hovers slightly apart from them. “We have little that is not held at Garreg Mach –”

“I honestly think it is an excuse to see you,” Byleth says, a smooth and mild interruption that Dimitri does not mind at all. “And perhaps Ferdinand.”

“They danced together at the treaty celebration,” Dedue says.

Dimitri did not know this. He is aware that his shock shows on his face from the way Dedue’s lips twitch. Gustave raises an eyebrow, interested despite himself. He is something of a gossipmonger regarding the Church echelon, though, so his interest is to be expected. 

“Was Duke Aegir drunk?” Gustave asks.

“No,” Dedue says, smiling fully now and not a little lopsided. “Seteth might have been.” 

“The wine was good,” Dimitri says as Byleth finishes undoing the ties on the linens. “You cannot blame him.” 

Neither Dedue or Gustave say anything. Dimitri is very aware that he was quite drunk that night. He had to be in order to wear the dancer garb in public and not on a battlefield. It, and the headache he woke up with the next morning, was worth it. Claude loved the dancer’s outfit. He laughed much like he did before the war, when they were young and had given less of themselves away. That evening:

Dimitri was happy.

“Ah,” Byleth says, pulling back the linens to reveal another covering, made of a light leather and with even more complex knots. 

“Don’t touch that!” Gustave barks. 

Byleth’s hand freezes, fingers just a short distance from the largest knot. Dedue stands straight, surprised by the harshness of Gustave’s voice. Dimitri blinks. Turns his head to give the book the full focus of his eye. 

There is a faint shimmering to the leather he couldn’t see before. 

“That’s pegasus hide,” Gustave says, and he clasps his hands in silent prayer. “Thank the Goddess none of us touched that.” 

Dimitri breathes in. 

_Damn it_

For once, it is his own thought echoing in his skull and not the ghosts. It is no comfort. 

He knows exactly what he needs to do. 

He already feels bad. 

But if this will finally give them concrete insight to Those Who Slither in the Dark or help to make Hubert and Edelgard’s coded notes accessible, he has only one choice. 

“I will summon Ferdinand,” he says, which makes Gustave, Byleth, and Dedue look to him in puzzlement. “He is able to handle pegasus hide.” 

Byleth and Dedue’s expressions of curiosity are overshadowed by the way Gustave’s face turns stormy. He does not say anything as Dimitri moves towards his desk to find thick paper to make a confidential message, but the weight of his opinions precedes his next inquiry well. 

“How?” 

Dimitri shuffles through the pile of scraps he keeps above his ink blotter. Everything is covered in his angry graphite scribbles regarding his House accounts and a recent marketplace reconciliation, so he moves onto his parchment in his right drawer. Tears off a third of a clean piece of parchment. He doesn’t have ink ready, so he picks up the pencil he uses for working on sums. He pauses momentarily, trying to decide what would make this obvious to Ferdinand but not to Lorenz. He senses that no matter what he says or how official he makes the message, Lorenz will want his head on a pike when all is said and done. 

Dimitri vows as he checks the pencil has exposed graphite that he will make this up to Lorenz and Ferdinand somehow. All of it. Perhaps when Lorenz becomes Count Gloucester, he will gift them a Levin dagger. Ferdinand is known for his enthusiasm for weapons, but he doesn’t like gifts that aren’t also useful. Lorenz is an accomplished mage, and he is very enthusiastic about gifts. It would be perfect.

 _I hope they use it against you,_ his stepmother laughs. 

Dimitri puts his pencil to parchment a bit too heavily. It thankfully neither snaps the graphite nor tears the skin.

“I do not know for certain,” Dimitri says because he doesn’t. 

_You are needed in my House,_ Dimitri scribbles down, feeling the beginnings of a headache.

He folds the parchment to create a small envelope of itself. He picks up his sealing wax, carrying the parchment and the wax back to light the latter off the table candle. He has to tilt his head slightly to make sure the wax drips where it will fully seal the message. 

“What,” Byleth starts, resting a hand on the table, “does pegasus hide do usually, if you touch it?” 

“It curses you,” Gustave says, blunt and strained. “Pegasi are creatures second only to the Goddess Herself. Using their bodies for anything that keeps them earthbound is sacrilege. If the curse is simply death, then that is a mercy.” 

“This doesn’t encourage me to ever learn to fly,” Dedue says, only half under his breath. 

Dimitri tunes out whatever Gustave says in response. He sets the rest of his sealing wax aside and lays the small message on a clear patch on the table. He turns his head slightly to the right to be certain he presses his signet ring into the center of the wax drippings. He waits a couple of seconds, aware that Dedue is responding in his bland manner that is actually teasing, before the wax sets enough to take his seal’s impression. He removes the ring and picks up the message again, blowing on the wax to hasten drying. 

“Seteth will be able to take that,” Byleth says, effectively interrupting whatever Gustave’s response was. “He is just puttering around the library.” 

“I would be grateful,” Dimitri says, handing the message to Byleth, who accepts it with a small smile. “I don’t think Lorenz would attack a man of the cloth.” 

“Hm,” Byleth says, lips twitching slightly before they turn away. 

“Your Highness,” Dedue says as Byleth passes strategically between him and Gustave on the way to the door into the main hall, “are you in Lorenz’s bad books?” 

Dimitri grimaces. “I wasn’t when I left this afternoon,” he says before he gives in and presses his fore and middle fingers to his right temple to relieve the building headache. “I forgot: he gave me tea sweets for everyone. They’re in my pack.” 

He moves from the table as Byleth opens the door. They pause briefly as Dimitri returns to where he’d dropped his pack on his desk chair. It takes Dimitri a moment as the contents have shifted around, but he extracts the tea sweets. They’re somewhat squashed, and some of the crust has flaked off into crumb, but otherwise they have endured Dimitri’s oversight fairly well. He brings them to Byleth, who wastes no time popping one in its entirety into their mouth and waving farewell. 

“Seteth’ll be by,” Dimitri thinks they say as they head off down the hall. 

“What was that?” Gustave asks as Dimitri turns to him and Dedue. 

“Seteth will come,” Dimitri says as he holds out the sweets; Dedue and Gustave both take the ones furthest from the other. “I don’t know what these are.” 

“They smell like they have rose and almond in them,” Dedue says, after taking a moment to sniff his with interest. “I assume Gloucester butter.” 

Gustave swallows his bite, eyebrows raising in surprised approval. “This is good,” he says and promptly takes another bite.

“I do remember Lorenz likes sweet things,” Dedue comments, which is something he would definitely remember. “I would like this recipe.” 

“Is House Gloucester still proprietary about that sort of thing?” Gustave asks as Dimitri takes a bite of the last pastry.

Dimitri shrugs. The pastry, as expected, tastes like nothing. He can tell it must be quite nice, though, because his teeth sink easily through it. He hopes he remembers to thank Lorenz for this, possibly before he lets Lorenz slap him. 

“I am certain he would share,” Dimitri says as he looks at the middle of the pastry, examining the exposed rose jam. 

“Gloucester has historically been a very secretive House,” Gustave says as Dedue and Dimitri finish their pastries. “They have been good allies, but I would still be cautious with their motivations.”

 _Stupid boy,_ his father hisses. 

Dimitri swallows his pastry with a grimace as Dedue, who is out of Gustave’s focus, rolls his eyes. Dimitri folds up the dirty linen and shoves it into his trouser pocket. His headache, instead of subsiding with sustenance, is increasing. He reaches up where he can feel a faint pulse at the side of his good eye. 

“I am fairly certain I understand Lorenz’s motivations,” Dimitri says, allowing himself a sigh as he turns towards the main door. “If Seteth comes, please come fetch me. I just need to confirm something I remembered on the flight over.” 

“Where are you going?” Dedue asks as Gustave inclines his head. 

“My father’s room,” Dimitri says before letting himself out onto the hall. 

He realises his mistake as soon as he has stepped away from the door. Dimitri shuts his eye briefly, sighing to himself again. He should have said the royal quarters. The bedroom has not been his father’s in a decade. Not even the surviving House staff from his father’s time refer to it as such. They call it the King’s room, and then tacitly say nothing about Dimitri in the consorts quarters.

Dimitri wonders why anyone puts up with him. 

The distance to the royal quarters is short. There is the main hall and a courtesy alcove designed to make meetings between consorts and the royal family more private. Dimitri is somewhat uncertain of how it increases privacy, since the consort would have to walk through the main hall. Surely, everyone would know. 

Sometimes Dimitri regrets not being more interested in romance novels and gossip. Even back in his academy days, he was aware the pillow book responsible for the escalation of his and Claude’s relationship went through even Edelgard’s hands eventually. To him, the only appeal was the illustrations. The stories were ridiculous and absolutely nothing like what Dimitri himself desired, but he senses that most people find some level of intrigue in such thoughts and set ups. Ingrid and Ashe clearly adore those stories as much as they do high tales. It all just makes Dimitri feel embarrassed. 

He also feels guilty. Real life is not like those romances or the high tales. No one has time to be both polite and to have romantic gestures. The joys of courtly love are designed to be cut short by war and strife and separation. Dimitri’s head throbs as he passes through the alcove, feeling frustrated and heartsick. 

Dimitri didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye with Claude this time, despite the fact they were standing in the same room. A part of Dimitri that sounds like a suspicious combination of Rufus and Gustave tries to remind him that he should be grateful. In regular courting, following the presentation of the courting dagger, Dimitri wouldn’t see Claude again until the wedding. Even so, Dimitri has become spoiled. He pushes open the doors to the royal quarters, feeling morose and resentful of all the pomp and circumstance. 

The royal quarters are almost completely empty. 

Dimitri walks through the reception room and the great study, both of which are almost unrecognisable to him. They were completely abused by Cordelia, and Dimitri is simply glad that he did not have to see their state just after her defeat. No one has told him what went on in these rooms, but Dimitri does not need any visual aids for what he has heard murmured by the townspeople of Cordelia’s debauchery. 

The only furniture that has survived from prior to the war is the royal bedchamber’s bed frame and wardrobe minus one of the doors. The mattress is gone, and the deep blue canopy that once decorated the posts is also gone. Dimitri stops at the foot of the great bed, which looks defeated and barren for the loss of its contents. 

As a child, the bed had seemed so big. His father was a giant to Dimitri in those days, too, but alone in this massive bed, he had seemed needy and human. Dimitri’s memory, ill-suited for anything aside from the brutal, troubled person he has grown to be, shys from looking at that human version of Lambert too closely. Even as he rounds to the right side of the bed frame, he fears thinking too much on those faded images will destroy them. 

But the memory of his father as a wolf:

Dimitri stares at where his father would have sat. The side table is gone, but it is easy to guess how a single candle would have lit the room. There would have been great, long shadows, and his father would have worn sleeping clothes against the usual chill. His hair would have been unstyled, but it was not long enough to do more than faintly obscure his face. 

With a sinking sensation in his gut, Dimitri glances at the covered window. It has a curtain that still bears the Blaiddyd crest, so it was likely there back then. It would have been the only other possible light source in the room. 

Dimitri knows, too, that he was not an imaginative child. He used to sleep soundly with no dreams or nightmares. The games he preferred already had parameters, and part of his solace in maths is how neat they are. He does not like strangeness and uncertainty. 

He knows what he saw. He was not frightened. 

He knows his father’s face. 

Dimitri stands, stares at where his father lay, and thinks.


	8. Chapter 8

**ix.**

In Almyra:

Dimitri spent a lot of time reading and watching Marie’s gem work.

At first, it was because he arrived in poor condition. Dimitri thankfully does not remember his time as a captive in Fhirdiad very well. What he does remember is unpleasant enough that he would rather not dwell upon it. Nothing Cordelia or the other cruelties did is worth remembering. By the time Dedue arrived in the chaos generated by the School of Sorcery’s rebellion, Dimitri was more beast than human.

Dedue had sense. He had somehow retrieved Claude’s courting chain, which had been ripped from Dimitri’s neck by hands he cannot put a face to. Neither of them shared what had happened between their separation and Dedue’s return. On the ship to Almyra, they only spoke of those circumstances in regards to the chain. They were both under the impression they would have to sell it to the captain upon arrival. Neither of them wanted to give it up.

“It is beautiful,” Dedue said as Dimitri dozed between fever and exhaustion in his lap. “It is exemplary in its craft.”

The chain itself contains no magic, being pure gold and therefore inert. The sapphires, Dimitri learned as he began the first of his many books laid up in a then unfamiliar bed, could be imbued with magic in the future. This interested Dimitri, even as he struggled to adjust not only to Almyra but to his second long convalescence since Duscur.

“I am not surprised by your interest,” Marie said after Dedue, in his growing habit of communicating Dimitri’s thoughts to others, told her of Dimitri’s interest. “Gem craft is something of a lost art in Fódlan.”

She brought him to her workshop once he was well enough, a building attached to the south-east part of the palace. It had been built for her as a courting gift, and the garden that completes the wing as a wedding gift. Dimitri, even on days when he would not describe himself as pleasant company, sat by Marie’s workbench as she sorted through materials or used fine tools to set stones. Her apprentices got used to his presence so well they thoroughly ignored him. Many were eager friends of Dedue, who joined them when time alloted for lessons. Dimitri read their lessons from Marie’s manuals and handbooks more than he listened or watched. He was more comfortable in Marie and later Dedue’s concentrated and quiet work, reading each piece in the library from cover to cover.

There is also a part of Dimitri, which he grew to acknowledge in Almyra, that simply adores pretty and ornate things. He took great joy with helping Marie go through her gem and metals, picking out different pieces to be polished and shaped into the new court fashions for her favoured ladies and the King to wear. He wrote up her instructions and notated her measurements, filling out her logbooks in a way that reminded him of doing accounts. Dimitri understood he liked doing this because he knew he was good at it, even when he was not good for anything else.

“There is great sense,” Marie said one evening as she measured her husband’s brow with a length of silver cord, “in learning a craft not simply for its practical uses but because it is beautiful.”

The King gazed at her with the only mild expression he owned, his wine goblet loose and leisurely in his left hand. Dimitri sat on the long couch next to the open balcony alongside Dedue, who was inspecting the tools in Marie’s kit. He felt calm and a little tired, even though all he had done was rest since returning from his quest for a dragon’s fang.

“My father once said something similar,” Dedue said, pulling out a drawer in her case to inspect additional magnifying lens. “He used to practice woodcarving when he had a bit of spare time. He made whistles for children.”

“I sew,” Dimitri said, surprising himself and everyone in the room by speaking; he swallowed, looking away and out the balcony window. “Not well. A little bit.”

The King laughed. Not mockingly. He was in a very good mood, but he always was when Marie was touching him.

“I see now why you appeal to my son,” he said, which made Dimitri turn hot in the face and reflexively cover himself with Marie’s measurement log. “He has always been attracted to contradictions and the extraordinary.”

“Ah,” Dimitri said, choked and embarrassed and unable to uncover his face.

“I wonder if they miss him,” Dedue said much later when they had returned to their rooms.

“Claude?” Dimitri asked, rather needlessly as he pulled his sleeping tunic over his head.

“Yes,” Dedue said; he was already fully dressed for bed. “We benefit greatly with Claude in Fódlan, but his family is here. He would be a good King here as much as he is a good Duke Riegan.”

Dimitri nodded. He did not have anything to add to the observation because Dedue was entirely correct. They murmured their good nights and went to bed. Dimitri spent most of the night staring up at his ceiling.

When he did sleep, he dreamed of wolves.

Dimitri, after spending so long in his father’s room, returns well after dark to the consort quarters in a vague daze. He strips down, climbs into bed without putting on sleeping clothes, and falls asleep so deeply he does not dream. He wakes late and only when Dedue lets himself into his bedroom with the morning wash basin and breakfast tray. They smile a little, laughing at each other without having to speak, and use the good morning to get ready for the day over tea and toast.

This is fortuitous.

Ferdinand arrives just after Dedue has helped Dimitri dress after breakfast.

He arrives on his horse, closely followed by Lorenz and Claude. All three and their horses look as if they began traveling in the night, which is not safe, especially since they had likely taken the shortest route and gone through Charon. Dimitri eyes through his spyscope the irritated expression on Lorenz’s face with no small amount of trepidation. Claude looks frustrated, but his eyes are clear and focused. Byleth rides slightly behind them, looking tired but also strangely amused. They had decided at the last minute to take the message themselves because they could travel faster than Seteth, who needed to write a message to Flayn.

Ferdinand, as he raises his right hand high with his Crest shining, wears a look that Dimitri has seen in a mirror. Next to Dimitri, Dedue breathes out through his mouth.

“I hope Byleth was able to make it a bit easier to travel so swiftly,” he says.

Dimitri knows he really means is that they hope Byleth has been able to prevent Lorenz, Claude, and Ferdinand from arguing too much. They both exchange a look as Dimitri returns his spyglass to his right pocket that says, very clearly, that neither of them hold much hope on that. Lorenz is argumentative by default, and Dimitri suspects that the three of them together are much more used to arguing than not. Dimitri’s recent presence as an awkward fourth party has just added to their discomfort.

“We have moved the book to the council room,” Dedue says as Dimitri attempts to steel himself. “At least we will not have a spat in your reception room.”

“A small mercy,” Dimitri agrees, feeling a headache behind his empty eye. “I am not sure we could all fit in that room.”

Dedue snorts and then sighs. It is moments like this where they both feel keenly that they missed a number of important things while they were in Almyra.

Perhaps, Dimitri suddenly realises, this is part of why Dedue and Byleth, who lost four and a half years to sleep, have gotten on so well.

Without meaning to, Dimitri and Dedue end up collecting Gustave, Seteth, and Felix on their way down to the main gates to welcome everyone. Gustave and Seteth were in conversation in the main hall over something Dimitri doesn’t catch, and Felix was coming in the main doors from the training hall. A part of Dimitri could scream in frustration that this is going to be a full affair of his cabinet and the Church when time is of the essence. Felix clearly catches onto Dimitri’s unvoiced frustration, eyeing him with a sour look as Dedue and Gustave make jabs at each other on the way down to the main gate.

“I don’t want a repeat of the dagger incident,” Felix says, unfortunately not low enough to avoid being overheard.

“I don’t want any incident,” Dimitri growls, which is not what he wanted to sound like but does have the benefit of making everyone quiet as the gates open to reveal Ferdinand, already dismounting his horse. “Hail the honorable Duke Aegir, Duke Riegan, Archbishop Byleth, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester.”

There is an awkward but sincere chorus of answering greetings. Dimitri desperately wants to reach out and touch Claude, who looks at him with a similar yearning, but this is not the time nor the place. They pass on the horses to stablehands and make vague conversation on the way into the castle. Dimitri could scream at the sky until he loses his voice with how little he cares for all of this.

It only gets worse one they are inside approaching the council room that has the pegasus hide package and out of the public eye.

“I very much do not appreciate –” Lorenz starts.

“Lorenz,” Byleth begins as Dimitri pulls his keyring out to open the council room door.

“No, I will have my piece,” Lorenz interrupts, which Dimitri knows will make temporary enemies out of Dedue and Seteth. “I am very tired of fielding cryptic messages with only a sense of urgency to guide how to react and respond –”

“It is the nature of this type of work,” Claude attempts to point out as Dimitri turns the key in the lock with as little natural force as possible. “It is unpleasant –”

“And I,” Lorenz says as Dimitri pushes open the heavy wooden door and tries not to turn around to yell at everyone, “am very tired of unpleasant things being used as excuses to treat people like they are not human beings but rather automatons –”

Dimitri forces himself, in a manner he has had to practice heavily over the years, to tune out of the conversation. He moves to the side to let everyone file in except for Seteth, who briefly locks eyes with Dimitri to indicate he is going to silently make himself scarce. Another body of the Church is not needed for this. It makes very good sense, even though Dimitri also sees Seteth send an apologetic look Ferdinand’s way. Ferdinand is the only person apart from them who is not speaking. He blinks at Seteth, clearly disappointed to see him go and a little overwhelmed, before turning his attention to Dimitri as Lorenz gets into it with Gustave.

“I must apologise,” he says, barely audible over the commotion Lorenz, Gustave, Claude, and Byleth are all causing as Dedue and Felix look between all four of them, completely at a loss for how to start damage control. “I was taking a bath when the professor arrived, so Claude and Lorenz…”

He waves his hands, very awkward. Dimitri nods. Ferdinand breathes in deeply and then out without audible sound. Dimitri watches him eye the escalating chaos that Dimitri is resolutely tuning out as Felix’s voice joins the fray. Felix rarely raises his voice. He sounds a lot like his father when he does.

“What did you need me to do?” Ferdinand asks, at the same volume as before.

“Oh,” Dimitri says, and his voice draws Dedue’s attention as Gustave begins to raise his voice to attempt to speak over Felix. “The professor brought a book only you can handle.”

Ferdinand’s eyebrows move up enough that his right one disappears into the tyranny of his hair. “Ah,” he says, at a more usual volume and drawing Lorenz’s attention like a hawk. “Where is it? Show me.”

“Where is what?” Lorenz asks, stepping away from the group and batting off Claude’s reaching hand; Claude looks at Dimitri in alarm as Gustave gawks at Lorenz’s bondness. “Ferdinand, I swear –”

“Please don’t,” Ferdinand begs.

“That accursed book,” Gustave mutters.

“Goddess blood,” Lorenz snarls as Ferdinand reaches up and presses his right hand against his own cheek, a gesture Dimitri has not seen him make in many years; Claude steps closer to Lorenz, looking like he is planning to attempt to bodily restrain him. “Is this about pegasus leather again?”

“Lorenz,” Ferdinand says before Dimitri can figure out a way to try to handle the situation, “I know you disapprove, but this is what I do. It cannot hurt me.”

“I do disapprove,” Lorenz says, hands fisting at his sides.

He doesn’t move forward. Claude’s hands, which he’d raised to grab onto Lorenz’s waist, drop back. Gustave scowls at them all, disapproving just as strongly as Lorenz but for different reasons. Dedue eyes both Gustave and Lorenz. Felix, obviously quite thrown by the rapid change in events, fiddles with his trouser pocket. He pulls out his packet of mint leaves and puts one in his mouth.

“Alright,” Ferdinand says, and he looks to Dimitri with his hand still on his face; Dimitri wonders if it allows him to pass into some sort of space of infinite calm. “Please show me.”

Dimitri finally looks to the council table. It is crowded, as usual, with papers, books, and ledgers, but after a moment, he is able to spot where the book has been placed, wrapped up again likely for safety. He moves around the table, Ferdinand following.

“Here now,” Lorenz starts.

“Lorenz,” Gustave says, warningly.

“Gustave,” Dedue says, equally warning.

“Dedue,” Dimitri says, stopping in front of the book and effectively drawing everyone’s attention because he raised his voice. “Have we a goat available? I wouldn’t mind that for dinner, and it will feed all of us.”

“Goat?” Felix says, taken aback enough that part of his chewed mint leaf nearly escapes his mouth.

“We do,” Dedue says, eyebrows raised in approval. “Two were slaughtered this morning for curing. I will go check to make sure they have not gone into brine.”

“Thank you,” Dimitri says, extremely grateful as Dedue moves to the door to depart; he takes a deep breath, glancing at Claude, who also looks more than a little relieved. “I understand we all have differing opinions, but I would not have sent the message if it was not urgent. For the sake of our good work, please let us proceed. I will listen to criticisms and input after we figure out what this is.”

“And what is it?” Lorenz asks, which makes Claude reach up and press his thumb and middle finger to the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“We think it is a book,” Dimitri says, moving to the side so that Ferdinand may pull off the wrapping off and expose the shimmering pegasus hide. “It was in Hubert’s possession.”

The expression that takes over Lorenz’s face is one that would make any sensible person fear for their life. Dimitri looks away and to Ferdinand instinctually. Byleth has also moved a bit closer, but their own focus on Ferdinand has made them pause. Dimitri is unsettled to completely understand why.

Ferdinand’s expression is very calm as he examines the pegasus hide. He traces his fore and middle fingers over the largest knot. His lips press together briefly. He blinks and Dimitri has the sudden, sweeping impression of open sky. The sensation of an orchard breeze. Cool and vibrant and fragrant. Ferdinand’s eyes –

Dimitri hurriedly breaks eye contact as blood magic blooms bright and clear and powerful. It is not the Crest of Cichol that lives in Ferdinand’s gaze.

It is the spring sky.

“You stupid man,” Ferdinand mutters, entirely to himself, and, before anyone can react, he spreads his fingers and presses his palm over the knot.

Dimitri can smell something sweet and burning. Byleth steps closer to him, watching how Ferdinand’s flares Thunder in the shape of his Crest over the knot. It does not fade. Slowly, it expands outward, flowing over the network of leather and smaller additional knots. Ferdinand’s face is empty.

His eyes are very wide and very clear.

In the doctrine of the Goddess, blood magic is abhorrent. It eats away at the user’s soul. In the old tales, it is dangerous. Powerful and irrevocable and detrimental to the human body. If it was not for Ferdinand’s pegasus mark to modulate his blood magic, Dimitri doubts he would have lived through the war.

There are a thousand tiny things that Dimitri would like to be forgiven for asking of others.

This is another.

Ferdinand breathes in.

“I am Ferdinand von Aegir.”

The leather heaves. Writhes. The knots untangle themselves as the larger hide begins to pull itself from the book. Ferdinand twists his fingers in the strips of the main knot, pulling it to reveal that it is all one piece of pegasus hide, the stripes cut in such a way to create enough length to make the binding possible. The book cover itself is marked with a hand pressed and painted image of a tree heavy with gem red apples and circled by golden bees. A black dog lies at the base of the tree, framed by roots that weave into a clover knot. The dog has green eyes.

Ferdinand stares at the cover. Through the cover. The pegasus hide coverings slip through his hands to pool over his boots on the floor. The dog stares up. Dimitri half-expects it to blink.

“Oh,” he says, a gust of wind.

Dimitri remembers, very suddenly, that Patricia used to weave in the summer.

“Ferdinand,” Lorenz says, very softly.

Ferdinand does not respond. Cannot, perhaps. He places both of his hands on the right side of the cover and lifts. The parchment used to stabilize the inner cover is the expensive, official red of the Empire. Ferdinand stares at it for a brief moment before letting the book’s cover rest on the tabletop. He turns the page. Heavy black calligraphy in the Adrestian style popular before the Insurrection jumps out. There are pencil drafting lines still around the initial. It was meant to have ornamentation.

_Take this in memory of our halcyon days._   
_When we were young, our hearts ablaze._   
_What regrets I have, I now give to you:_   
_Remember me, remember us when we were true._

_Do you recall the song you sang for me?_

Dimitri stops reading. This is private. He did not need to know this.

He looks away from the book. Away from Ferdinand. He ends up looking at Felix, who has also obviously just looked away from the book. He meets Dimitri’s gaze, clearly incredibly discomforted and likely wishing, just as Dimitri is, that none of this is happening.

He looked like that, Dimitri remembers with a sicking twist of his stomach, the first time he killed someone in their maiden battle.

Parchment moving. Dimitri turns his attention back to find that Claude has moved closer to Ferdinand, who has turned the page. Claude seems to be trying to find something to say as well as examining the next contents of the book, which is a detailed anatomical diagram of how to place a Crest stone in a human chest. Around the heart.

The drawing is obviously of Hubert.

Dimitri remembers, very clearly, how Ferdinand spun his axe as he charged Hubert on the broken flagstones. The way that the air around Ferdinand blossomed and bloomed and roared as he raised himself upon his horse. Hubert faced forward. He made no move to defend himself.

He smiled as Ferdinand, lit by his Crest and strange, sweet-smelling magic, smashed him down and to the ground.

“So that is what he did,” Claude says.

He is awed and disgusted and gutted in those words. Dimitri steps forward to wrap an arm around Claude’s waist, cautious suddenly of how close he stands to the dropped pegasus hide. Claude glances at him. His teeth are clenched so hard that Dimitri can see the bulge of his muscles on the side of his jaw.

On the streets of Enbarr, Claude had his one moment of weakness:

_Do you regret allowing me to court you?_

Dimitri watches Ferdinand extend his hand. He traces the empty face of the anatomical figure.

Dimitri thinks of Patricia, slipping thread through her loom. She always looked so pensive and sad.

“I am sorry,” Ferdinand says; he speaks to the book; Dimitri can smell the soft notes of apple blossoms carried in the breeze, “but, as this addressed to me, may I read this first in privacy? I will leave it for everyone to read afterwards, and I will dispose of the hide. The book itself has no special magicks.”

“Yes,” Claude says, and he looks to Dimitri, who nods his agreement, and then briefly and with some apology to Lorenz, who nods with the oddest expression on his face. “We will have a dinner tray for you.”

Ferdinand nods. He doesn’t say anything further nor look at anyone. Perhaps he can’t. Dimitri highly doubts he will want a dinner tray, but most people take comfort from applying some sense of normalcy to such extraordinary situations. He is suddenly very glad he asked Dedue to see about the goats for dinner. It is a shame that they have no apples, but Aegir was the primary producer before the war, so there have been nothing but crab apples on the market for five years now. He wonders how much using the goats will cost their monthly budget as he turns towards the door and then abruptly feels horrible for thinking like that.

Everyone shuffles out into the hall. It is, Dimitri can sense everyone’s awkwardness, so he concentrates on shutting the door quietly and not looking at Ferdinand as he does so. Felix makes a short motion that catches Gustave and Byleth’s attention, and they move away with Gustave bending slightly to listen to what Felix says in an undertone. Dimitri senses that Felix has made something up. They ask so much of each other without voicing any of it.

Chivalry is a disease.

“Dimitri,” Lorenz says.

He draws Dimitri’s attention with a voice that is calm and level. Lorenz’s bearing is straight backed but not combative; rather, he seems thoughtful and very alert. It is bizarrely incredible to see how well Lorenz of all people is taking the situation. Claude blinks twice rapidly, clearly following the same train of thought.

“Would you be able to lend me ginger or angelica tea?”

“I have ginger in my room,” Dimitri says because it is Dedue’s favourite. “I am not sure we have angelica prepared for tea, but I enjoy it candied.”

Lorenz and Claude’s eyebrows both rise. Dimitri realises that Dedue is likely the only person who knows that he enjoys things that maintain a chewing texture. Claude seems to consider this new information with far more intensity than it warrants. Lorenz smiles slightly, still so calm.

“If I could have a bit of that and the tea, I would be grateful,” he says. “Together they make a good tincture for an unbalanced system. The sugar doesn’t matter.”

That explains why Dedue has always encouraged Dimitri to consume candied angelica. Dimitri motions for them to follow, feeling off-kilter. A lot of Dedue’s medical knowledge is a mixture of different folk medicines as he lacks white magic talent in the conventional sense. Dimitri, as he walks towards the consort quarters, wonders how Lorenz would know this as well.

Somehow, Lorenz manages to read Dimitri’s thoughts. Or maybe the atmosphere.

“You know,” Lorenz says, drawing both Claude and Dimitri’s attention, “when I first came to Fhirdiad, it was because my parents had decided I should learn the magic of the Goddess. Not just the folk magic my parents actually excel at. In comparison to all the other students, I was not very good because the magic I learned wasn’t ‘real’, and I couldn’t share that I knew it else I would disgrace the persona of my House. When my father called me home due to the rebellion, I wasn’t that sad to go. I just wished it was under better circumstances.”

It is not a political overture. This is, Dimitri realises, Lorenz being friendly.

The magnitude of this realisation makes Dimitri nearly push his bedroom door off its hinges, looking over his shoulder to give Lorenz his full attention. Claude looks up at Lorenz, giving him his entire focus with his eyebrows raised. He is also clearly not used to this side of Lorenz, which may only be characterised as very open and incredibly reasonable. Claude does look less surprised than Dimitri feels, though, so this must not be entirely new.

Dimitri wonders, somewhat numbly as he welcomes them both into his rooms, if Lorenz and Ferdinand are the type of couple who balance each other out.

“While I am here,” Lorenz says as they enter the reception room, “I was thinking of visiting the School of Sorcery. I have heard from Ferdinand and Marianne that most people do not like to go there, but someone needs to assess whether there are any resources that may be salvaged. It had a great library.”

“Yes,” Dimitri says, and he moves to his desk and picks up the small tin that he keeps angelica in before moving to his mantle to take the ginger tea box off. “Mercedes and Annette would likely be willing to give you a tour. They are some of the few who are willing to spend much time there.”

He turns around. Claude has moved to inspect the contents of Dimitri’s low table, which is covered in his recent reading about horse husbandry and educational treatises that Seteth had once removed from Garreg Mach’s library. Dimitri offers the box and tin to Lorenz, who steps forward and takes them. He smiles, a very knowing and settled expression.

“I would be very grateful,” Lorenz says before he glances to the side, an uncharacteristic pause that makes Claude straighten and turn to them; Lorenz returns his gaze to Dimitri, expression still friendly but also very intense. “I have something I must tell you two. I feel I should explain my motivations from here on out.”

Dimitri thinks of the way Lorenz has complete control over his House. It is, as no other that Dimitri knows, Lorenz’s sanctum. It obeys him and only him and there is no other rightful master.

On Gloucester ground, Lorenz is the great Lord of all.

He loves Ferdinand, who is the open sky and free of clouds.

It strikes Dimitri that Lorenz is very brave.

“I am aware,” he says as he sets the tea box on top of the candy tin, “that the Ferdinand I fell in love with back at the academy will not come back. He has been gone for many years now, and a part of me suspects that he never existed. There are things I have come to understand that I could not have known. I was right in my decision not to court Ferdinand back then.

“The Ferdinand I love now and who loves me back is difficult, but so am I. It is my personal hope that one day he will be able to live better than he is able now. He has given his flesh and blood to a cause he was not born to serve, and he has sent people who once cared for and raised him to die. It has made him unwell, and it has changed him.

“As a guest in my House,” and Lorenz traces his fingertips around the contours of the box and tin, almost absently, “he has been kind to my parents in their ailing strength. To my mother, he has been more than kind; he brings her true comfort no one else may provide. And he is always kind to me, even when I have been utterly rude and even crude towards him. He cares little for himself and finds it easier to serve others than to live for himself. I have had to make peace with that, so that we may survive, and I may keep hope to see my dream fulfilled. That is the truth I have recently come to understand.

“So,” Lorenz says, and he smiles, glancing between Claude and Dimitri and bowing his head to excuse himself, “thank you for this and for listening. I hope you better understand why I have come. I hope you understand, too, that you may not be rid of me.

“I, too, will fight to protect the person I love.”

He straightens. Turns. He does not ask to be excused as he crosses the short distance of Dimitri’s reception room and lets himself back out into the hall. He shuts the door behind himself, paying them only a brief nod before the door slides shut.

Dimitri realises that both he and Claude have simply been standing next to each other with their mouths wide open. He shuts his mouth at the same time Claude does. They look at each other. Claude slightly up. Dimitri slightly down.

“Did,” Dimitri starts before his brain sputters.

“I think,” Claude says, very slowly and very warily, “we just made a permanent enemy out of Lorenz.”

“Enemy,” Dimitri echoes, numbly.

Claude nods. “I don’t think he hates us,” he says, less slowly, “but he certainly no longer likes us.”

Dimitri breathes out. Reaches up. Out. He wraps his arms around Claude, who wraps his arms around Dimitri’s waist and shudders.

They try to feel warm again.

The fact of the matter is that, unless the world changes, this will happen again. There will be kings and queens and emperors and leaders and they will send their people, noble and common, to war and death. Friends will become enemies. Family and lovers hostages. The cycle will continue to devour indiscriminately, and it will be as brutal as a dragon or wolf and more vicious in its cruelty.

“Claude,” Dimitri says.

In his arms, Claude looks up. Dimitri tilts his head down. Presses his lips against Claude’s brow. He listens to how it makes Claude sigh. Feels some of the tension slips from his body. They lean into each other and breathe.

_When I am with you, I am at peace._

“I love you.”

When all of this is done, Dimitri thinks:

He would like to travel with Claude back across the sea.


End file.
